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RACTICAL TEACHERS' LIBRARY. No. 6. 



FEBRUARY, 1897. 



ished Monthly by E. L. Kellogg & Co., N. Y. Subscription Price, $5 a Year. 

Entered at the Post Office at New York as second class matter. 



Lectures on the 
Science and Art 
of Education . . 

with other Lectures . . 
By Joseph Payne. 



T 



With Topical Headings, Index, Life of the 
\uthor, and an Introduction by R. H. Quick. 

Dm the Publishing House of E. L. Kellogg & Co., 
New York and Chicago. 



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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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LECTURES 



ON THE 



SCIENCE AND ART 

OF 



EDUCATION 



With Other Lectures, 







By JOSEPH PAYNE, 

THE FIRST PROFESSOR OF THE SCIENCE AND ART OF EDUCATION IN 
THE COLLEGE OF PRECEPTORS, LONDON. 



NEW EDITION. 

New York and Chicago : 

E. L KELLOGG & CO. 

1890. 

is: 



Particular attention is invited to the analysis 
at the end of each lecture ; also to the index 
at end. These cannot hut prove very valu- 
able to every reader. 



4966 

Copyright by 

E. L. KELLOGG & CO., 

1887. 



PREFACE 



Joseph Payne's writings possess a high value on 
account of the scientific form which his statements 
pertaining to education take on. The crystallizing 
process seems to have set in ; truths no longer 
stand separate, but tend to organize. During the 
latter part of this century the question — Has Edu- 
cation a scientific foundation ? began to be asked, 
doubtfully by most. The Art of Teaching had 
been learned by imitation ; the teacher sought no 
principles, because he never heard they existed. 
But great men from time to time became teachers. 
Rabelais, Montaigne, Locke, the Jesuits Rosseau, 
Pestalozzi, Froebel, and many others, rolled up a 
rich mass of teaching-facts, and partially arranged 
them in order. It needed next a philosophic mind 
to deal with these discoveries, to state their value 
and explain them. Joseph Payne seemed raised 
up for this purpose ; his cast of mind, education 
and experience, fitted him to investigate this field 
of thought. 

Remember that thousands of teachers had read 
what Pestalozzi and Froebel had done. Joseph 
Payne saw their work was founded on the growth- 



4 Preface. 

laws of the human mind, and that it was eminent 
for that very reason. His writings cannot conceal 
his joy at thus finding a solid ground for methods 
of teaching. His circle of readers has been stead- 
ily widening since his death ; like other men of 
genius, he was appreciated by a small circle while 
living. 

A growing desire is apparent in this country for 
a better comprehension of education ; even teach- 
ers in obscure places, on low salaries, are reading 
educational books, so that the publishers felt en- 
couraged to put forth this volume. It contains the 
most valuable of all Mr. Payne's published works. 
The English edition contains : 

*i. Theory of Education ; *2. Practice of Edu- 
cation ; *3. Educational Methods ; *4. Principles 
of the Science of Education; 5. Training and 
Equipment of the Teacher ; *6. Importance of the 
Training of the Teacher ; *y. Science and Art of 
Education ; *8. True Foundation of Science 
Teaching; 9. Preface, etc., to Miss Youmans' 
Essay on the Culture of the Observing Powers of 
Children; 10. Curriculum of Modern Education; 
11. Importance of Improving our ' Ordinary 
Methods of School Instruction; 12. The Past, 
Present, etc., of the College of Preceptors; 
13. Proposal for Endowment of Professorship of 
the Science and Art of Education in College of 
Preceptors; 14. A Compendious Exposition of 
Jacotot's System of Education. 



Preface. 5 

This volume contains all of the above that are 
marked with a star, and besides a lecture on Pes- 
talozzi and a lecture on Froebel — lectures which did 
much to make him famous. These lectures are 
not in the English edition ; so that in this small 
volume the American reader has all of Mr. Payne's 
writings that will be of practical value to him. 
Mr. Payne was Professor of the Art and Science of 
Education in the College of Preceptors in London, 
and lectures 12 and 13 relate to matters of no im- 
portance to us. Lecture 5 discusses men and mat- 
ters that are only interesting to English teachers. 
Lecture 9 is a preface to an American book re- 
published in England. Lecture 10 discusses the 
claims of classics and science. Lecture 1 1 dis- 
cusses education reports and results, and was in- 
teresting, perhaps, at the time to English readers. 
Lecture 14 is the republication of a little pamphlet 
published by Mr. Payne in 1830, and discusses the 
teaching of a foreign language. 

It will be seen, therefore, that this volume con- 
tains those writings of Mr. Payne that have value 
to every teacher who seeks the foundation prin- 
ciples of the noble Art of Teaching. And these 
principles are very clearly stated by him : 

1. Nature is planned for mans education — strict- 
ly educational, page 31; how she teaches, 107; 
not to be implicitly followed, 112; good method 
in accordance, 146 ; teaches those who have no 
other teacher, 207 ; develops all the faculties, 287 ; 
must go in conformity with nature, 323. 



6 Contents. 

HIS CENTRAL PRINCIPLE. 

2. Learning is self-teaching, 106 ; the pupil 
teaches himself, 106 ; pupil teaching himself, 108 ; 
process of self-education, 114 ; Burke cited, 122 ; 
note, 133; note, 135; Rousseau, 136; Jacotot's 
method, 172; learner educates himself, 190; 
central principles, 195; the child's method, 210; 
learning the work of the pupil, 220 ; the pupils 
teach themselves, 262 ; Prof. Huxley, 263 ; Mr. 
Wilson, 264 ; child's own method, 298. 

3. The teacher superintends the operations by 
which the pupil teaches himself- — the teacher a 
guide, 106, 119; Prof. Tyndall cited, 124; guid- 
ance and superintendence, 135 ; teacher directed 
and guided, 169; supplies materials, 189; to 
teach means, 203. 

CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Preface , 3 

Introduction by Rev. R. H. Quick 7 

Life of Joseph Payne 14 

The Science and Art of Education 20 

The Theory or Science of Education 59 

The Practice or Art of Education 104 

Educational Methods 140 

Principles of the Science of Education 187 

Theories of Teaching with their Corresponding Prac- 
tice iqS 

The Importance of the Training of the Teacher 227 

The True Foundation of Science Teaching 253 

Pestalozzi: The Influence of his Principles and 

Practice on Elementary Education 275 

Froebel and the Kindergarten System of Education. 307 



INTRODUCTION. 

BY THE REV. R. H. QUICK, 

AUTHOR OF ESSAYS ON EDUCATIONAL REFORMERS, ETC. 



A few words of introduction seem necessary to 
tell the general reader what it concerns him to 
know about the author of this volume, and his 
practical acquaintance with education. 

At an early age Mr. Payne became an assistant 
in a London school ; and, as he himself main- 
tained, he would have fallen into the ordinary 
groove of routine teaching had he not accidentally 
become acquainted with the principles of the French 
reformer Jacotot, and been fired with the en- 
thusiasm which Jacotot succeeded in kindling far 
and wide both in his own country and in Belgium. 
In England, Mr. Payne was the first (in importance, 
if not in time) of Jacotot's disciples ; and finding 
that the new principles entirely changed his notion 
of the teacher's office, and turned routine into a 
course of never-ending experiment and discovery, 
he forthwith set about preaching the new educa- 
tional evangel. Though a very young man and 



8 Introduction. 

with small resources, he published an account of 
Jacotot's system (1830), and gave public lectures 
to arouse teachers to a sense of its importance. 
The system interested a lady, who induced Mr. 
Payne to undertake the instruction of her own 
children : and this family became the nucleus of a 
large school under Mr. Payne's management at 
Denmark Hill. Some years afterwards, Mr. Payne 
established himself at the Mansion House, Lether- 
head, where he was still very successful as a school- 
master, and where he acquired the means of retir- 
ing, after thirty years' work, from the profession. 
In his school-keeping, and in all his undertakings, 
even his studies, Mr. Payne was greatly assisted 
by his wife, a lady who had herself been engaged 
in education, and who entered into his pursuits 
with the sympathy of the intellect as well as of the 
heart, till she was called away, only a few months 
before her husband. Believing as I do that Mr. 
Payne's labors have had and will have a great in- 
fluence on education in this country, I feel bound 
to bear this testimony to her by whom he was so 
greatly assisted. 

We have seen that Mr. Payne became early in 
life an enthusiastic theorist. We most of us have 
our enthusiasms when we are young, and teachers, 
like other people, at first expect to do great things, 
and make great advances on the practice of their 
predecessors. But as they grow older the enthusi- 
asms die out. All sorts of concessions to use and 



Introduction. 9 

wont are forced upon them ; and by degrees they 
find there is much to be said for the usual methods. 
These methods are, for the master at all events, the 
easiest ; and they have this great advantage, that 
they lead to the expected results. Changes might 
lead to unexpected results, and these would not 
find favor with parents. If we do well what other 
people are doing, and doing in some cases very 
badly, we shall please everybody ; and why not 
be satisfied with that which satisfies our employers? 
In this way we find excuses for our failing energy, 
and by the time we have experience enough to 
judge what reforms are possible, we have settled 
down into indolent contentment with things as 
they are. To this law of the decay of enthusiasms 
Mr. Payne's career shows us a striking exception. 
In early life an interest in principles had changed 
his occupation from a dull routine to an absorbing 
intellectual pursuit, and as he went on he found 
that his study of theory, instead of making him 
" unpractical," gave him great practical advantages. 
His pupils did not fail in ordinary acquirements ; 
and their memory, even for Latin Grammar, was 
developed without any assistance from the cane. 
When I first became acquainted with Mr. Payne, 
he had retired from his school, and I do not know 
how far he succeeded in carrying out his prin- 
ciples. That they had constant influence over 
him, no one who knew him would for an instant 
doubt; but probably, like all high-minded men, 



io Introduction. 

he fell far short of his own ideal. But the more 
he taught himself and the more he had to direct 
other teachers, the stronger grew his conviction 
that education should be studied scientifically, that 
principles should direct practice, and further that 
the main cause of weakness in our school s) T stem 
lay in our teachers' ignorance of the nature of their 
calling, and of the main truths about it already 
established. The consequence was that when, k 
after many years of labor, he found himself able to 
spend his remaining days as he chose, he set to 
work with an enthusiasm, and energy, and self-de- 
votion rarely found even in young men, to arouse 
teachers to a sense of their deficiencies, and to be 
a pioneer in the needed science of education. It 
was, I believe, mainly owing to his influence, and 
to that of his friend Mr. C. H. Lake, that the 
College of Preceptors instituted an examination 
for teachers, the first held in this country. In 
1872, the College took another important step, 
and appointed the first English Professor of the 
Science and Art of Education. The Professor ap- 
pointed was Mr. Payne, and no man could have 
been found with higher qualifications. He had 
always been a diligent student, and had a much 
wider culture than is usually found in school- 
masters, or indeed in any class of hard-worked men, ' 
and his habits of reading and writing now gave 
him great advantages. But these would have been 
of little avail had he not possessed the main re- 



Introduction. 1 1 

quisite for the professorship as few indeed pos- 
sessed it, viz., a profound belief in the present 
value and future possibilities of the Science of Edu- 
cation. No work could have been more congenial 
to him than endeavoring to awaken in young 
teachers that spirit of inquiry into principles, which 
he had found the salt of his own life in the school- 
room. And short as his tenure of the Professor- 
ship unhappily proved, he succeeded in his en- 
deavor, and left behind him students who have 
learned from him to make their practice as teach- 
ers more beneficial to others and infinitely more 
pleasurable to themselves, by investigating the 
theory which not only explains right practice, but 
also points out the way to it. 

That interest in education as a science and an 
art which was awakened by the delivery of Mr. 
Payne's lectures will one day, I trust, be more 
widely spread by their publication. The papers in 
this volume have already appeared at different 
times, and they are now for the first time collected. 
But there are numerous lectures which still remain 
in MS. 

Mr. Payne always spoke of Jacotot as "his 
master/' and in one of the paradoxes of Jacotot is 
contained the principle which takes the leading 
place in Mr. Payne's teaching. Jacotot exposed 
himself to the jeers of schoolmasters by asserting 
that a teacher who understood his business could 
"teach what he did not know." By teacher is 



1 2 Introduction. 

usually understood one who communicates knowl- 
edge. This meaning of the word, however, was 
unsatisfactory to Jacotot and to his English dis- 
ciple. What is knowledge? Knowledge is the 
abiding result of some action of the mind. Who- 
ever causes the minds of pupils to take the neces- 
sary action teaches the pupils, and this is the only 
kind of teaching which Mr. Payne would hear of. 
Thus we see that Jacotot's paradox points to a new 
conception of the teacher's function. The teacher 
is not one who ' ' tells, " but one who sets the 
learner's mind to work, directs it and regulates its 
rate of advance. In order to "tell," one needs 
nothing beyond a form of words which the pupils 
may reproduce with or without comprehension. 
But to "teach," in Mr. Payne's sense of the word, 
a vast deal more was required, an insight into the 
working of the pupil's mind, a power of calling its 
activities into play, and of directing them to the 
needful exercise, a perception of results, and a 
knowledge how to render those results permanent. 
Such was Mr. Payne's notion of the teacher's office, 
and this notion lies at the root of all that he said 
and wrote about instruction. It would be useless 
to attempt to decide how far the conception was 
original with him. "Everything reasonable has 
been thought already," says Goethe. Mr. Payne, 
as we have seen, was always eager to declare his 
obligations to Jacotot. The same notion of the 
teacher is found in the utterances of other men, 



Introduction. 13 

especially of Pestalozzi and Froebel. But when 
such a conception becomes part and parcel of a 
mind like Mr. Payne's, it forthwith becomes a fresh 
force, and its influence spreads to others. 

To elevate the teacher's conception of his call- 
ing was the task to which Mr. Payne devoted the 
latter years of his life ; and those who knew him 
best, desire to see his influence extended by this 
and other publications of his writings, that he may 
still be a worker in the cause which he had at 
heart. 

R. H. Quick. 

January, 1880. 



LIFE OF JOSEPH PAYNE.* 



It would be difficult to overestimate the loss 
which the cause of educational progress and re- 
form has sustained by the recent death of Mr. 
Joseph Payne. At the present juncture, when so 
great an impetus has been given to popular educa- 
tion, and such rapid strides are being taken, not 
always with the clearest light, or in the wisest 
direction, and when the guidance and influence 
of men of wide experience, careful thought, and 
untiring devotion, is more than ever necessary, few 
could be named whose place it would be more 
difficult to supply. 

Those who had the privilege of knowing Mr. 
Payne are aware that, both as a theorist and as a 
practical teacher, he had made it the business of 
his life to expose the futility of the unintelligent 
routine with which educators have too commonly 
contented themselves, and to rouse teachers to re- 

* The subjoined Obituary Notice appeared shortly 
after Mr. Payne's death in the Educational 2'imes for 
June I, 1876. 



Life of Joseph Payne. 15 

place it by methods which would call the expand- 
ing faculties of the young scholar into healthful 
activity, which would promote and regulate their 
development by well-considered and sympathetic 
guidance, and would direct their action to the best 
and wisest ends. In short, he strove to make 
education a reality instead of a pretence. With 
this view he constantly insisted on the too often 
forgotten truth, that the only teaching that is 
worthy of the name is that which enables the 
learner to teach himself, that which awakens in 
him the desire for knowledge, and guides him by 
the surest and readiest methods to its attainment. 
Such teaching proceeds upon intelligent and scien- 
tific principles and demands of the teacher some- 
thing different from the humdrum giving of 
routine lessons. As the obvious corollary of this, 
Mr. Payne urged upon teachers the necessity of 
mastering the true principles that should guide 
them in the exercise of their profession, and of 
rousing themselves to the perception of the truth 
that the teacher must learn how to teach ; that he 
must not only know thoroughly and fundamentally 
that which he teaches, but must study well the laws 
which govern the exercise and development of the 
faculties of those whom he teaches ; that he must 
know both the lesson and the scholar, and the 
means by which the two may be brought into 
fruitful contact. These aims Mr. Payne pursued 
throughout his life, unobtrusively indeed, yet with 



1 6 Life of Joseph Payne. 

single-minded enthusiasm, and unswerving tenac- 
ity of purpose. 

Mr. Payne was born at Bury St. Edmunds on 
the 2d of March, 1808. His early education was 
very incomplete, and it was not till he was about 
fourteen years old that, at a school kept by a Mr. 
Freeman, he came under the instruction of a really 
competent teacher. This advantage, however, he 
did not enjoy very long. At a comparatively early 
age he was under the necessity of getting his own 
living, which he did partly by teaching, partly by 
writing for the press. His life at this period was 
laborious, and not altogether free from privations. 
He found time, however, for diligent study, and 
numerous extract and common-place books testify 
to the wide range of his reading in the ancient 
classics and in English literature. 

When he was about twenty years of age he be- 
came a private tutor in the family of Mr. David 
Fletcher, of Camberwell. His exceptional apti- 
tude for teaching, and his energetic devotion to 
study attracted the appreciation and sympathy of 
the mother of his young pupils. The children of 
one or two neighbors were admitted to share the 
benefits of his instruction, and thus a small pre- 
paratory school sprang up. Under his zealous 
and able direction it increased in numbers and 
consideration, till it expanded into the important 
school known as "Denmark Hill Grammar 
School, " carried on in a fine old mansion (recently 



Life of Joseph Payne. 17 

demolished) on Denmark Hill. Here, in partner- 
ship with Mr. Fletcher, he continued his labors 
for some years. 

In 1837 Mr. Payne married Miss Dyer, a lady 
who was at the head of a girls' school of high 
repute, which she continued to carry on for some 
time. In her he had the happiness of obtaining, 
as the partner of his life, a lady of great energy of 
character, of tact and method in the conduct of 
affairs, and admirably suited to sympathize with 
him in the aims and ambitions of his life. 

Mr. Payne's connection with the school at Cam- 
berwell continued till the year 1845, when he 
established himself independently at the Mansion 
House, Letherhead. Here he labored with great 
energy and success for about eighteen years, his 
school taking rank as one of the very first private 
schools in this country. In 1863, having ac- 
quired a modest competence, he withdrew from 
the active cares of his profession. None the less, 
however, did he continue to devote himself strenu- 
ously to the cause of educational progress. He 
took a lively and active interest in several of the 
most important movements having this for their 
purpose, such (for example) as the " Women's Edu- 
cation Union," and the " Public Girls' School 
Company," the improvement of women's educa- 
tion having long been one of his most cherished 
objects. By lectures, and through the press, and 
by his active and energetic participation in the 



1 8 Life of Joseph Payne. 

operations carried on by the College of Preceptors, 
he still zealously pursued the great object of his 
life — the advancement of education by the im« 
provement of its methods, and the elevation of the 
character and status of the teacher. The Kinder- 
garten system of Froebel was one in which he took 
a keen interest. He studied profoundly the 
methods and systems of all who have obtained 
celebrity as educators, and Pestalozzi and Jacotot 
had in him a warm admirer and an able expositor. 
When a Professorship of the Science and Art of 
Education (the first of its kind) was established by 
the College of Preceptors, he was unanimously 
elected to occupy that chair. 

Throughout his life Mr. Payne was a hard 
student. Till but a few months before his death, 
he was wont to continue his work into the small 
hours of the morning. He was especially inter- 
ested in the history of the development of the 
English language, and the characteristics of the differ- 
ent dialects, and more particularly in the history of 
the Norman-French element. This led him to a 
rather extensive study of the dialeots of French, 
and the history of the French language generally. 
A paper of great value by him on these subjects 
appears in the "Transactions of the Philological 
Society," of which he was one of the most dis- 
tinguished and active members. 

Mr. Payne's life had been too laboriously occu- 
pied to leave time for the composition of any large 



Life of Joseph Payne. 19 

literary works; but his little volume of ''Select 
Poetry for Children " is one of the very best of its 
class, and his "Studies in English Prose,'' and 
"Studies in English Poetry," have met with a wide 
appreciation. Among various lectures and pam- 
phlets published by him, may be mentioned : 
"Three Lectures on the Science and Art of Edu- 
cation," delivered at the College of Preceptors in 
1 871 ; "The True Foundation of Science Teach- 
ing," a lecture delivered at the College of Precep- 
tors in 1872; "The Importance of the Training 
of the Teacher ;" "The Science and Art of Edu- 
cation," an introductory lecture delivered at the 
College of Preceptors; " Pestalozzi," a lecture 
delivered at the College of Preceptors in 1875; 
"Froebel and the Kindergarten System," a lec- 
ture delivered at the College of Preceptors ; ' ' The 
Curriculum of Modern Education." 

The death of his wife, which occurred in the 
autumn of last year, probably aggravated the 
symptoms of a malady of some standing, which 
terminated, on April 30, 1876, a life of singular 
purity and nobleness of aim, of strenuous and un- 
intermitting industry, and of unselfish devotion to 
high and worthy ends. 



THE SCIENCE AND ART OF EDU- 
CATION.* 



INTRODUCTION. 

THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 

At the beginning of last year I delivered, in this 
room, a lecture intended to inaugurate the course 
of lectures and lessons on the Science and Art of 
Education, which the Council of the College of 
Preceptors had appointed me to undertake. The 
experiment then about to be tried was a new one 
in this country; for, although we have had for 
some years colleges intended to prepare elementary 
teachers for their work, nothing of the kind ex- 
isted for middle class and higher teachers. As I 
stated in that inaugural lecture, the council of 
the College of Preceptors, after waiting in vain for 
action on the part of the Government or of the 
Universities, and attempting, also in vain, to ob- 
tain the influential co-operation of the leading 
scholastic authorities in aid of their object, resolved 
to make a beginning themselves. They therefore 
adopted a scheme laid before them by one of their 

* An introductory lecture delivered at the College of 
Preceptors, Jan. 20, 1874. 



Introduction. 21 

colleagues — a lady — and offered the first Professor- 
ship of the Science and Art of Education to me. 
We felt that some considerable difficulties lay in 
the way of any attempt to realize our intentions. 
Among these, there were two especially on which 
I will dwell for a few minutes. The first was, the T ^ e0J ^„ t - on 
opinion very generally entertained in this country fiance o/Edu- 
that there is no science of education, that is, that cation - 
there are no fixed principles for the guidance of 
the educator's practice. It is generally admitted 
that there is a science of medicine, of law, of 
theology ; but it is not generally admitted that 
there is a corresponding science of education. 
The opinion that there is no such science w r as, as 
we know, courageously uttered by Mr. Lowe, but 
we also know that there are hundreds of cultivated 
professional men in England who silently main- 
tain it, and are practically guided by it. These 
men, many of them distinguished proficients in the 
Art of teaching, if you venture to suggest to them 
that there must be a correlated Science which de- 
termines — whether they are conscious of it or not 
— the laws of their practice, generally by a signifi- 
cant smile let you know their opinion both of the 
subject and of yourself. If they deign to open 
their lips at all, it is to mutter something about 
"Pedagogy," " frothy stuff, " "mere quackery,"* 

* It is remarkable that the dictionary meaning of 
"quack" is "a boastful pretender to arts he does not 



22 The Science and Art of Education. 

or to tell you point-blank that if there is such a 
science, it is no business of theirs : they do very 
well without it. This opinion, which they, no 
doubt, sincerely entertain, is, however, simply the 
Germany ad- product of thoughtlessness on their part. If they 
had carefully considered the subject in relation to 
themselves — if they had known the fact that the 
science which they disclaim or denounce has long 
engaged the attention of hundreds of the profound- 
est thinkers of Germany — many of them teachers 
of at least equal standing to their own — who have 
reverently admitted its pretensions, and devoted 
their great powers of mind to the investigation of 
its laws, they would, at least, have given you a re- 
spectful hearing. But great, as we know, is the 
power of ignorance, and it will prevail — for a time. 
There are, however, even now, hopeful signs which 
indicate a change of public opinion. Only a week 
ago, a leader in the Times called attention to Sir 
Bartle Frere's conviction expressed in one of his 
lectures in Scotland, that ' ' the acknowledged and 
growing power of Germany is intimately connected 
with the admirable education which the great body 
of the German nation are in the habit of receiving. " 

understand," so that the asserter of principles as the 
foundation of correct practice is ignorantly denounced as 
weak en the very point which constitutes his strength. 
One may imagine the shouts of laughter with which such 
a denunciation would be received in an assembly of 
German experts in education. 



Introduction. 23 

The education of which Sir Bartle Frere speaks is 
the direct result of that very science which is so 
generally unknown, and despised, because un- 
known, by our cultivated men, and especially by 
many of our most eminent teachers. When this 
educated power of Germany, which has already 
shaken to its centre the boasted military reputation 
of France, does the same for our boasted commer 
cial reputation, as Sir Bartle Frere and others de- 
clare that it is even now doing, and for our boasted 
engineering reputation, as Mr. Mundella pre- 
dicts it will do, unless we look about us in time, 
the despisers of the science of education will 
adopt a different tone, and perhaps confess them- 
selves in error; at all events, they will betake them- 
selves to a modest and respectful silence. No German teach- 
later back than yesterday (January 19) the Times ours. 
contained three letters bearing on Sir Bartle Frere's 
assertion that the increasing commercial import- 
ance of Germany is due mainly to the excellence 
of German education. One writer refers to the 
German Realschulen or Thing-Schools, and to the 
High Schools of Commerce, in both of which the 
practical study of matters bearing on real life is 
conducted. Another writer, an ex-chairman of 
the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, says: "I 
have no hesitation in stating that young Germans 
make the best business men, and the reason is, 
that they are usually better educated ; I mean by 
this, they have a more thorough education, which 



24 The Science and Art of Education. 

imparts to them accuracy and precision. What- 
ever they do is well and accurately done ; no de- 
tail is too small to escape their attention; and this 
engenders a habit of thought and mind which in 
after life makes them shrewd and thorough men of 
business. I think the maintenance of our com- 
mercial superiority is very much of a school- 
master's question." A third writer speaks of the 
young German clerks sent out to the East as c ' in- 
finitely superior" in education to the class of 
young men sent out from England, and ends by 
saying, ' * Whatever be the cause, there can be no 
question that the Germans are outstripping us in 
the race for commercial superiority in the far 
East. " 

Some persons, no doubt, will be found to cavil 
at these statements ; the only comment, however, 
I think it necessary to make is this — "Germany is 
a country where the science of education is widely 
and profoundly studied, and where the art is con- 
formed to the science. " I leave you to draw your 
own inferences. Without, however, dwelling fur- 
ther on this important matter, though it is in- 
timately connected with my purpose, I repeat that 
this dead weight of ignorance in the public mind 
respecting the true claims of the science of educa- 
tion, constitutes one of the difficulties with which 
we have had to contend. The writer of a leading 
article in the Times, January 10, said emphatically, 
"In truth, there is nothing in which the mass of 



Introduction. 25 

Englishmen are so much in need of education as 
in appreciating the value of education itself." 
These words contain a pregnant and melancholy 
truth, which will be more and more acknowledged 
as time moves on. 

But there was another difficulty of scarcely less Teachers them- 

. , , . , , , , , selves think 

importance with which we had to contend, and they have noth- 
this is the conviction entertained by the general alSut ° Educa"- 
body of teachers that they have nothing to learn tl0n ' 
about education. We are now descending, be it 
remembered, from the leaders to the great band of 
mere followers; from the officers of the army to the 
rank and file. My own experience, it may well be 
believed, of teachers, has been considerable. As 
the net result of it, I can confidently affirm that 
until I commenced my class in February last, I 
never came in contact with a dozen teachers who 
were not entirely satisfied with their own empirical 
methods of teaching. To what others had written 
on the principles of education, — to what these had 
reduced to successful practice, — they were, for the 
most part, profoundly indifferent. To move on- 
ward in the grooves to which they had been ac- 
customed in their school days, or, if more intelli- 
gent, to devise methods of their own, without any 
respect to the experience, however enlightened, of 
others, was, and is, the general practice among 
teachers. For them, indeed, the great educational 
authorities, whether writers or workers, might as 
well never have existed at all. In short, to repeat 



26 The Science and Art of Education. 

what I said before, teachers, as a class (there 
are many notable exceptions), are so contented 
with themselves and their own methods of teaching 
that they complacently believe, and act on the 
belief, that they have nothing at all to learn from 
the science and art of education ; and this is 
much to be regretted for their own sakes, and es- 
pecially for the sake of the pupils, whose educa 
tional health and well-being lie in their hand?. 
However this may be, the fact is unquestionable, 
that one of the greatest impediments to any attempt 
to expound the principles of education lies in th? 
unwarrantable assumption on the part of the teach- 
ers that they have nothing to learn on the subject. 
Here, however, as is often the case, the real need 
for a remedy is in inverse proportion to the 
patient's consciousness of the need. The worst 
teachers are generally those who are most satisfied 
with themselves, and their own small perform- 
ances. 
it is thought The fallacy, not yet displaced from the mind of 

that one who ,, , ,. , ,. , , . 

knows a subject the public, on which this superstructure ot conceit 
is raised, is that "he who knows a subject can 
teach it." The postulate, that a teacher should 
thoroughly know the subject he professes to teach, 
is by no means disputed, but it is contended that 
the question at issue is to be mainly decided by 
considerations lying on the pupil's side of it. The 
process of thinking, by which the pupil learns, is 
essentially his own. The teacher can but stimu- 



introduction. 27 

late and direct ; he cannot supersede it. He can- 
not do the thinking necessary to gain the desired 
result for his pupil. The problem, then, that he The great prob- 

• 1 , •, , j I*™ ™ to get the 

has to solve is how to get his pupil to learn ; and pupa to lea™. 

it is evident that he may know the subject without 

knowing the best means of making his pupil know 

it too, which is the assumed end of all his teaching. 

He may be an adept in his subject, but a novice in 

the art of teaching it — an art which has principles, 

laws, and processes peculiar to itself. 

But, again : a man, profoundly acquainted with Sometimes a 

1 • , r teacher knows 

a subject may be unapt to teach it by reason ot too much to 
the very height and extent of his knowledge. His 
mind habitually dwells among the mountains, and 
he has, therefore, small sympathy with the toiling 
plodders on the plains below. The difficulties 
which beset their path have long ceased to be a 
part of his own experience. He cannot then easily 
condescend to their condition, place himself along- 
side of them, and force a sympathy he cannot 
naturally feel with their trials and perplexities. 
Both these cases tend to the same issue, and show 
that it is a fallacy to assert that there is any neces- 
sary connection between knowing a subject and 
knowing how to teach it. 

Our experiment was commenced on the 6th of Work of the 
February last. On the afternoon of that day, only ceptofs. ° 
seventeen teachers had given in their names as mem- 
bers of the class that was to be formed. In the 
evening, however, to my surprise, I found no 



28 The Science and Art of Education, 

fewer than fifty-one awaiting the lecture. This 
number was increased in a few weeks to seventy, 
and on the whole, there have been eighty mem- 
bers in the course of the year. Having brought 
our little history down to the commencement of 
the lectures in 1873, I propose to occupy the re- 
mainder of our time with a brief account of what 
was intended, and what has been accomplished by 
them. 

Generally speaking, the intention was to show 
(1) that there is a science of education; that is, 
that there are principles derived from the nature of 
the mind which furnish laws for the educator's guid- 
ance; (2) that there is an art founded on the 
science, which will be efficient or inefficient in pro- 
portion to the educator's conscious knowledge of 
its principles. 
How should we It will be, perhaps, remembered by some now 

teach the Set- ' % r \ . J 

ence of Educa- present, that I gave in my inaugural lecture a 
sketch of the manner in which I intended to treat 
these subjects. As, however, memories are often 
weak, and require to be humored, and as repeti- 
tion is the teacher's sheet-anchor, I may, perhaps, 
be excused if I repeat some of the matter then 
brought forward, and more especially as I may 
calculate that a large proportion of my audience 
were not present last year. 

I had to consider how I should treat the science 
of education, especially in relation to such a class 
as I was likely to have. It was to be expected that 



Introduction. 29 

the class would consist of young teachers unskilled 
in the art of teaching, and perhaps even more un- 
skilled in that of thinking. Such in fact they, for 
the most part, proved to be. Now the science of 
education is a branch of psychology, and both 
education and psychology, as sciences, may be 
studied either deductively or inductively. We 
may commence with general propositions, and 
work downwards to the facts they represent, or up- 
wards from the facts to the general propositions. 
To students who had been mainly occupied with 
the concrete and practical, it seemed to me much 
better to commence with the concrete and prac- 
tical ; with facts, rather than with abstractions. 
But what facts? That was the question. There 
is no doubt that a given art contains in its practice, 
for eyes that can truly see, the principles which 
govern its action. The reason for doing may be 
gathered from the doing itself. If, then, we could 
be quite sure beforehand that perfect specimens of 
practical teaching, based on sound principles, were 
accessible, we might have set about studying them 
carefully, with a view to elicit the principles which 
underlie the practice, and in this way we might 
have arrived at a science of education. But then 
this involves the whole question — Who is to guar- 
antee dogmatically the absolute soundness of a 
given method of teaching, and if any one comes 
forward to do this, who is to guarantee the sound- 
ness of his judgment? 



30 The Science and Art of Education, 
its principles It appears, then, that although we might evolve 

could not be ,-, . . , c , . . r . . 

evolved from the principles of medicine from the general prac- 
uceT C ~ tice of medicine, or the principles of engineering 
from the general practice of engineering, we can- 
not evolve the principles of education from the 
general practice of education as we actually find it. 
So much of that practice is radically and obviously 
unsound, so little of sequence and co-ordination is 
there in its parts, so aimless generally is its action, 
that to search for the science of education in its 
ordinary present practice would be a sheer waste of 
time. We should find, for instance, the same 
teacher acting one day, and with regard to one 
subject, on one principle, and another day, or 
with regard to another subject, on a totally differ- 
ent principle, all the time forgetting that the mind 
really has but one method of learning so as really 
to know, though multitudes of methods may be 
framed for giving the semblance of knowing. We 
see one teacher, who is never satisfied until he 
secures his pupils' possession of clear ideas upon a 
given subject ; another, who will let them go off 
with confused and imperfect ideas ; and a third, 
who will think his duty done when he has stuffed 
them with mere words — with husks instead of 
grain. It is then perfectly clear that we cannot 
deduce the principles of true science from varying 
practice of this kind ; and if we confine ourselves 
to inferences drawn from such practice, we shall 
never know what the science of education is. 



Introduction. 31 

Having thus shut ourselves off from dealing with 
the subject by the high a priori method, commenc- 
ing with abstract principles, and also from the un- 
satisfactory method of inference founded on vari- 
ous, but generally imperfect, practice ; and being 
still resolved, if possible, to get down to a solid 
foundation on which we might build a fabric of 
silence, we were led to inquire whether any system %?f t u ff 5 be J^ 
of education is to be found, constant and consist- lowed - 
ent in its working, by the study of which we 
might reach the desired end. On looking round 
we saw that there is such a system continually at 
work under our very eyes, — one which secures 
definite results, in the shape of positive knowledge, 
and trains to habit the powers by which these re- 
sults are gained, — which cannot but be consistent 
with the general nature of things, because it is 
Natures own. Here, then, we have what we were 
seeking for — a system working harmoniously and 
consistently towards a definite end, and securing 
positive results — a system, too, strictly educational, 
whether we regard the development of the facul- 
ties employed, or the acquisition of knowledge, as 
accompanying the development — a system in 
which the little child is the pupil and nature the 
educator. 

Having gained this stand-point, and with it a 
conviction that if we could only understand this 
great educator's method of teaching, and see the 
true connection between the means he employs 



32 The Science and Art of Education. 

and the end he attains, we should get a correct 
notion of what is really meant by education ; we 
next inquire, "How are we to proceed for this 
Her system purpose ?" The answer is, by the method through 
'tinted. inves ~ which other truths are ascertained — by investiga- 
tion. We must do what the chemist, the physi- 
cian, the astronomer do, when they study their 
respective subjects. We must examine into the 
facts, and endeavor to ascertain, first, what they 
are; secondly, what they mean. The bodily 
growth of the child from birth is, for instance, a 
fact, which we can all observe for ourselves. 
What does it mean ? It means that, under certain 
external influences— such as air, light, food — the 
child increases in material bulk and in physical 
power : that these influences tend to integration, 
to the forming of a whole ; that they are all neces- 
sary for that purpose ; that the withholding of any 
one of them leads to disintegration or the breaking 
„ . . up of the whole. But as we continue to observe. 

First Princi- r ^ 

pie— Body and we see, moreover, evidences of mental growth, 

mind are inter- T „ . . 

dependent. We witness the birth of consciousness ; we see the 
mind answering, through the senses, to the call of 
the external world, and giving manifest tokens 
that impressions are both received and retained by 
it. The child "takes notice" of objects and ac- 
tions, manifests feelings of pleasure or pain in con- 
nection with them, and indicates a desire or will 
to deal in his own way with the objects, and to 
take part in the actions. We see that this growth 



Introduction. 33 

of intellectual power, shown by his increasing 
ability to hold intercourse with things about him, 
is closely connected with the growth of his bodily 
powers, and we derive from our observation one 
important principle of the Science of Education, 
that mind and body are mutually interdependent, and 
co-operate in promoting growth. 

We next observe that as the baby, under the %°"i a %ity Ci ~ 
combined influences of air, light, and food, gains &y™ by exer ~ 
bodily strength, he augments that strength by con- 
tinually exercising it ; he uses the fund he has ob- 
tained, and, by using, makes it more. Exercise 
reiterated, almost unremitting; unceasing move- 
ment, apparently for its own sake, as an end 
in itself; the jerking and wriggling in the mother's 
arms, the putting forth of his hands to grasp at 
things near him, the turning of the head to look at 
bright objects; this exercise, these movements, 
constitute his very life. He lives in them, and by 
them. He is urged to exercise by stimulants from 
without; but the exercise itself brings pleasure 
with it {labor ipse voluptas), is continued on that 
account, and ends in increase of power. What 
applies to the body applies also, by the foregoing 
principle, to the intellectual powers, which grow 
with the infant's growth, and strengthen with his 
strength. Our observation of these facts furnishes 
us, therefore, with a second principle of education : 
Faculty of whatever kind 'grows by exercise. Without pie— Exercise 
changing our ground we supplement this prin- Tyre/itiT/o^ 



34 The Science and Art of Education, 

ciple by another. We see that the great educator 
who prompts the baby to exercise, and connects 
pleasure with all his voluntary movements, makes 
the exercise effectual for the purpose in view by 
constant reiteration. Perfection in action is se- 
cured by repeating the action thousands of times. 
The baby makes the same movements over and 
over again ; the muscles and the nerves learn to 
work together, and habit is the result. Similarly in 
the case of the mind, the impressions communi- 
cated through the organs of sense grow from 
cloudy to clear, from obscure to definite, by dint 
of endless repetition of the functional act. By the 
observation of these facts we arrive at a third prin- 
ciple of education : Exercise involves repetition, 
which, as regards bodily actions, ends in habits of 
action, and as regards impressions received by the 
mind, ends in clearness of perception. 

Looking still at our baby as he pursues his 
education, we see that this manifold exercise is 
only apparently an end in itself. The true pur- 
pose of the teaching is to stimulate the pupil to 
the acquisition of knowledge, and to make all 
these varied movements subservient to that end. 
This exercise of faculty brings the child into con- 
tact with the properties of matter, initiates him 
into the mysteries of hard and soft, heavy and 
light, etc., the varieties of form, of round and flat, 
circular and angular, etc., the attractive charms of 
color. All this is knowledge, gained by reiterated 



Introduction. 35 

exercise of the faculties, and stored up in the mind 
by its retentive power. We recognize the baby as a 
practical inquirer after knowledge for its own sake. 
But we further see him as a discoverer, testing the 
properties of matter by making his own experi- 
ments upon it. He knocks the spoon against the 
basin which contains his food ; he is pleased with 
the sound produced by his action, and more than 
pleased, delighted, if the basin breaks under the 
operation. He throws his ball on the ground, 
and follows its revolution with his enraptured eye. 
What a wonderful experiment it is ! How charmed 
he is with the effect he has produced ! He re- 
peats the experiment over and over again with un- 
wearied assiduity. The child is surely a Newton, 
or a Faraday, in petticoats. No, he is simply one 
of nature's ordinary pupils, inquiring after knowl- 
edge, and gaining it by his own unaided powers. 
He is teaching himself, under the guidance of a 
great educator. His self-teaching ends in develop- 
ment and growth, and it is therefore strictly educa- 
tional in its nature. In view of these facts we 
gain a fourth principle of the Science of Educa- 
tion. The exercise of the child's own powers, 
stimulated but not superseded by the educator s inter- How we learn 
ference, ends both in the acquisition of knowledge Jian. 
and in the invigoration of the powers for further 
acquisition. 

It is unnecessary to give further illustrations of 
our method. Every one will see that it consists 



36 The Science and Art of Education. 

essentially in the observation and investigation of 
facts, the most important of which is that we 
have before us a pupil going through a definite 
system of education. We are convinced that it is 
education, because it develops faculty, and there* 
fore conduces to development and growth. By 
close observation we detect the method of the 
master, and see that it is a method which repudi- 
ates cramming rules and definitions, and giving 
wordy explanations, and secures the pupil's 
utmost benefit from the work by making him do 
it all himself through the exercise of his unaided 
powers. We thus get a clue to the construction 
of a Science of Education, to be built up, as it 
were, on the organized compound of body and 
mind, to which we give the name of baby. Con- 
tinuing still our observation of the phenomena it 
manifests, first in its speechless, and afterwards in 
its speaking, condition, we gain other principles of 
education ; and lastly, colligating and general- 
izing our generalizations, we arrive at a definition 
of education as carried on by Nature. This may 
be roughly expressed thus : Natural education con- 
Definition oj SIS ^ S in the development and training of the learner s 
powers, through influences of various kinds, which 
are initiated by action from tvithout, met by corre- 
sponding reaction from within. 

Then assuming, as we appear to have a right to 
do. that this natural education should be the 



Edzication. 



Introduction, 37 

mociel or type of formal education, we somewhat 
modify our definition thus — 

Education is the development and training of the 
/earner's native powers by means of instruction car- 
ried on through the conscious and persistent agency 
of the formal educator, and depends upon the estab- 
lished connection behveen the world without and the 
world within the mind — between the objective and the 
subjective. 

I am aware that this definition is defective, inas- 
much as it ignores — or appears to ignore — the 
vast fields of physical and moral education. It 
will, however, serve my present purpose, which is 
especially connected with intellectual education. 

THE ART OF EDUCATION. 

Having reached this point, and gained a general 

notion of a Science of Education, we go on to 

consider the Art of Education, or the practical 

application of the science. We are thus led to Difference be- 
tween Science 
examine the difference between Science and Art, and Art. 

and between Nature and Art. Science tells us 

what a thing is, and why it is what it is. It deals 

therefore with the nature of the thing, with its 

relations to other things, and consequently with 

the laws of its being. Art derives its rules from 

this knowledge of the thing and its laws of action, 

and says, " Do this or that with the thing in order 

to accomplish the end you have in view. If you 



The Science and Art of Education. 



How the true 
A rtist works. 



Art based on 

Nature. 



act otherwise with it, you violate the laws of its 
being. " Now the rules of Art may be carried out 
blindly or intelligently. If blindly, the worker is 
a mere artisan — an operative who follows routine, 
whose rule is the rule-of-thumb. If intelligently, 
he is a true artist, who not only knows what he is 
doing, but why this process is right and that 
wrong, and who is furnished with resources suit- 
able for guiding normal, and correcting abnormal, 
action. All the operations of the true artist can 
be justified by reference to the principles of 
Science. But there is also a correlation between 
Nature and Art. These terms are apparently, but 
not really, opposed to each other. Bacoki long ago 
pointed out the true distinction when he said, Ars 
est Ho?no additus Natures — Art is Nature with the 
addition of Man — Art is Man's work added to (not 
Art of Teach- put in the place of) Nature's work. Here then is the 
Nature. °* synthesis of Nature and Man which justifies us in 
saying that natural education is the type or model 
of formal, or what we usually call, without an 
epithet, education, and that the Art of Teaching 
is the application by the teacher of laws of Science, 
which he has himself discovered by investigating 
Nature. This is the key-stone of our position ; it 
this is firm and strong, all is firm and strong. 
Abandon this position and you walk in darkness 
and doubt, not knowing what you are doing or 
whither you are wandering — at the mercy of every 
wind of doctrine. 



Introduction. 39 

The artist in education, thus equipped, is ready common Er- 
not only to work himself, but to judge of the caseT 
work of others. He sees, for instance, a teacher 
coldly or sternly demanding the attention of a 
little child to some lesson, say in arithmetic. The 
child has never been led up gradually to the 
point at which he is. He has none but confused 
notions about it. The teacher, without any 
attempt to interest the child, without exhibiting 
affection or sympathy towards him, hastily gives 
him some technical directions, and sends him 
away to profit by them as he may — simply "orders 
him to learn," and leaves him to do so alone. 
Our teacher says: "This transaction is inartistic. 
The element of humanity is altogether wanting in 
it. It is not in accordance with the Science of 
Education ; it is a violation of the Art. The great 
educator, in his teaching, presents a motive and 
an object for voluntary action ; and therefore ex- 
cites attention towards the object by enlisting the 
feelings in the inquiry. He does not, it is true, 
show sympathy, because he acts by inflexible rules. 
But the human educator, as an artist, is bound 
not only to excite an interest in the work, but to 
sympathize with the worker. This teacher does 
neither. His practice ought to exemplify the 
formula, Ars = Natura -j- Homo. He leaves out 
both Natura and Homo. His Ars therefore = o." 

Another case presents itself. Here the teacher 
does not leave the child alone; on the contrary, Second case, 



4© The Science and Art of Education 

is continually by his side. At this moment he is 
copiously "imparting his knowledge" of some 
subject to his pupil, whose aspect shows that he is 
not receiving it, and who therefore looks puzzled. 
The matter, whatever it is, has evidently little or 
no relation to the actual condition of the child's 
mind, in which it finds no links of association and 
produces no intellectual reaction, and which there- 
fore does not co-operate with the teacher's. He 
patiently endures, however, because he cannot 
escape from it, the downpouring of the teacher's 
knowledge ; but it is obvious that he gains noth- 
ing from it. It passes over his mind as water 
passes over a duck's back. The subject of in- 
struction, before unknown, remains unknown still. 
Our artist teacher, looking on, pronounces that 
this teaching is inartistic, as not being founded on 
science. "The efficiency of a lesson is to be 
proved, " he says, ' ' by the part taken in it by the 
pupil ; and here the teacher does all the work, the 
pupil does nothing at all. It is the teacher's mind, 
not the learner's, that is engaged in it. Our great 
master teaches by calling into exercise the learner s 
powers, not by making a display of his own. The 
child will never learn anything so as to possess it 
for himself by such teaching as this, which accounts 
the exercise of his own faculties as having little 
or nothing to do with the process of learning. " 
Third case. Once more ; our student, informed in the 

Science of Education, watches a teacher who is 



Introduction. 41 

giving a lesson on language — say, on the mother- 
tongue. This mother-tongue the child virtually 
knows how to use already : and, if he has been ac- 
customed to educated society, speaks and (if he is 
old enough to write) writes it correctly. The 
teacher puts a book into his hand, the first sen- 
tence of which is, "English grammar is the art of 
speaking and writing the English language "cor- 
rectly." The child does not know what an " art" 
is, nor what is meant by speaking English "cor- 
rectly." If he is intelligent he wonders whether he 
speaks it "correctly" or not. As to the meaning 
of " art, " he is altogether at sea. The teacher is 
aware of the perplexity, and desiring to make him 
really understand the meaning of the word, at- 
tempts an explanation. "An art," he says (get- 
ting the definition from a dictionary), "is a 
power of doing something not taught by Nature." 
The child stares with astonishment, as if you were 
talking Greek or Arabic. What can be meant by 
a "power" — what by "being taught by Nature"? 
The teacher sees that his explanation has only 
made what was dark before darker still. He at- 
tempts to explain his explanation, and the fog 
grows thicker and thicker. At last he gives it up, 
pronounces the child stupid, and ends by telling 
him to learn by rote — that is, by hurdy-gurdy 
grind — the unintelligible words. That at least the 
child can do (a parrot could be taught to do the 
same), and he does it ; but his mind has received 



42 The Science and Art of Education. 

no instruction whatever from the lesson — the intel- 
ligence which distinguishes the child from the 
parrot remains entirely uncultivated. 

Our teacher proceeds to criticise. "This is," 
he says, "altogether inartistic teaching. Our 
great master does not begin with definitions — and 
indeed gives no definitions — because they are 
unsuited to his pupil's state of mind. He begins 
with facts which the child can understand, because 
he observes them himself. This teacher should 
have begun with facts. The first lesson in Gram- 
mar (if indeed it is necessary to teach Grammar at 
all to a little child) should be a lesson on the 
names of the objects in the room — objects which 
the child sees and handles, and knows by seeing 
and handling — that is, has ideas of them in his 
mind. ' What is the name of this thing and of 
that ?' he inquires, and the child tells him. The 
ideas of the things, and the names by which they 
are known, are already associated together in his 
consciousness, and he has already learned to 
translate things into words. The teacher may tell 
him (for he could not discover it for himself) that 
a name may also be called a noun. ' What then, ' 
the teacher may say, 'is a noun?' The child 
replies, ' A noun is a name of a thing. ' He has 
constructed a definition himself — a very simple one 
certainly — but then it is a definition which he 
thoroughly understands because it is his own work. 
This mode of proceeding would be artistic, be- 



. Introduction. 43 

cause in accordance with Nature. There would 
be no need to commit the definition to memory, 
as a mere collection of words, because what it 
means is already committed to the understanding 
which will retain it, because it represents facts 
already known and appreciated. Thoroughly 
knowing things is the sure way to remember them." 

In some such way as this our expert brings the 
processes commonly called teaching to the touch- 
stone of his Science, the Science which he has 
built up on his observation of the processes of 
Nature. 

I am afraid that, in spite of my illustrations, I The mind must 

J be understood. 

may still have failed to impress you as strongly as I 
wish to do with the cardinal truth, that you cannot 
get the best results of teaching unless you under- 
stand the mind with which you have to deal. 
There are, indeed, teachers endowed with the 
power of sympathizing so earnestly with children, 
that in their case this sympathy does the work of 
knowledge, or rather it is knowledge unconsciously 
exercising the power proverbially attributed to it. 
The intense interest they feel in their work almost 
instinctively leads them to adopt the right way of 
doing it. They are artists without knowing that 
they are artists. But, speaking generally, it will 
be found that the only truly efficient director of 
intellectual action is one who understands intel- 
lectual action — that is, who understands the true 
nature of the mind which he is directing. It is 



44 The Science and Art of Education. 

this demand which we make on the teacher that 
constitutes teaching as a psychological art, and 
which renders the conviction inevitable that an 
immense number of those who practise it do so 
without possessing the requisite qualifications. 
They undertake to guide a machine of exquisit 
capabilities, and of the most delicate construction, 
without understanding its construction or the 
range of its capabilities, and especially without 
understanding the fundamental principles of the 
science of mechanics. Hence the telling, cram- 
ming, the endless explaining, the rote-learning, 
which enfeeble and deaden the native powers of 
the child; and hence, as the final consequence, 
the melancholy results of instruction in our pri- 
mary schools, and the scarcely less melancholy 
results in schools of higher aims and pretensions, 
all of which are the legitimate fruit of the one 
fundamental error which I have over and over 
again pointed out. 
Teaching in its In accordance with these views, it has been in- 
sisted on throughout the entire course of lectures, 
that teaching, in the true sense of the term, has 
nothing in common with the system of telling, 
cramming, and drilling, which very generally 
usurps its name. The teacher, properly so called, 
is a man who, besides knowing the subject he has 
to teach, knows moreover the nature of the mind 
which he has to direct in its acquisition of knowl- 
edge, and the best methods by which this may be 



Introduction. 45 

accomplished. He must know the subject of in- 
struction thoroughly, because, although it is not 
he but the child who is to learn, his knowledge 
will enable him to suggest the points to which the 
learner's attention is to be directed ; and besides, 
as his proper function is to act as a guide, it is 
important that he should have previously taken 
the journey himself. But we discountenance the 
notion usually entertained that the teacher is to 
know because he has to communicate his k?iowledge 
to the learner; and maintain, on the contrary, 
that his proper function as a teacher does not con- 
sist in the communication of his own knowledge 
to the learner, but rather in such action as ends in 
the learner's acquisition of knowledge for himself. 
To deny this principle is to give a direct sanction Not telling or 
to telling and cramming, which are forbidden by 
the laws of education. To tell the child what he 
can learn for himself is to neutralize his efforts ; con- 
sequently, to enfeeble his powers, to quench his 
interest in the subject, probably to create a distaste 
for it, to prevent him from learning how to learn — to 
defeat in short, all the ends of true education. On 
the other hand, to get him to gain knowledge for 
himself stimulates his efforts, strengthens his 
powers, quickens his interest in the subject and 
makes him take pleasure in learning it, teaches 
him how to learn other subjects, leads to the 
formation of habits of thinking ; and, in short, 
promotes all the ends of true education. The 



46 The Science and Art of Education. 

The pupu must obvious objection to this view of the case is, that 
thing timseif. as there are many things which the child cannot 
learn by himself, we must of course tell him them. 
My answer is, that the things which he cannof 
learn of himself are things unsuited to the actual 
state of his mind. His mind is not yet prepared 
for them ; and by forcing them upon him prema- 
turely, you are injuriously anticipating the natural 
course of things. You are cramming him with 
that which, although it may be knowledge to you, 
cannot possibly be knowledge to him. Knowing, 
in relation to the training of the mind, is the re- 
sult of learning; and learning is the process by 
which the child teaches himself; and he teaches 
himself — he can only teach himself — by personal 
experience. Take, for instance, a portion of 
matter which, for some cause or other, interests 
him. He exercises his senses upon it, looks at it, 
handles it, etc., throws it on the ground, flings it 
up into the air; and, while doing all this, com- 
pares it with other things, gains notions of its 
color, form, hardness, weight, etc. The result is, 
that without any direct teaching from you, without 
any telling, he knows it through his personal ex- 
perience — he knows it, as we say, of his own 
knowledge; and has not only learned by himself 
something that he did not know before, but has 
been learning how to learn. But supposing that 
you are not satisfied with his proceeding thus 
naturally and surely in the career of self-acquisition, 



Introduction. 47 

and you tell him something which he could not 
possibly learn by this method of his own. Let it 
be, for instance, the distance of the sun from the 
earth, the superficial area of Sweden, etc. When 
you have told him that the sun is 95 millions of 
miles from the earth, that the area of Sweden is so 
many square miles, you have evidently transcended 
his personal experience. What you have told him, 
instead of being knowledge gained, as in the 
other case, at first hand, is information obtained 
probably at tenth or even fiftieth hand, even by 
yourself, and is therefore in no true sense of 
the word ' ' knowledge" even to you, much less is 
it knowledge to him ; and in telling it to him pre- 
maturely, you are cramming and not teaching 
him. Or. John Brown ("Horae Subsecivse," Knowledge 

J v must be the fiu- 

Second series, p. 473) well says : "The great fits' own. 
thing w r ith knowledge and the young is to secure 
that it shall be their own ; that it be not merely 
external to their inner and real self, but shall 
go in succum et sanguinem ; and therefore it is 
that the self-teaching that a baby and a child give 
.themselves remains with them forever. It is of 
their essence, whereas what is given them ab extra, 
especially if it be received mechanically, without 
relish, and without any energizing of the entire 
nature, remains pitifully useless and wersh (in- 
sipid). Try, therefore, always to get the resident 
teacher inside the skin, and who is forever giving 
his lessons, to help you, and be on your side." 



48 The Science and Art of Education. 

You easily see from these remarks of Dr. Brown's 
that he means what I mean : that, matters of in- 
formation obtained by other people's research, and 
which is true knowledge to those who have law- 
fully gained it, is not knowledge to a child who 
has had no share in the acquisition, and your dog- 
matic imposition of it upon his mind, or rather 
memory only, is of the essence of cramming. 
Such information is merely patchwork laid over 
the substance of the cloth as compared with the 
texture of the cloth itself. It is on, but not of, the 
fabric. This expansive and comprehensive prin- 
ciple — which regards all learning by mere rote, 
even of such matters as multiplication-table or 
Latin declensions — before the child's mind has had 
some preliminary dealing with the facts of Num- 
ber or of Latin — as essentially cramming, and 
therefore anti-educational in its nature — will be, of 
course, received or rejected by teachers, just in 
proportion as they receive or reject the conception 
of an art of teaching founded on psychological 
principles. 

liustTnow the And this brin g s me to the next P oint for 

mind. special consideration. I said that the teacher who 

is to direct intellectual operations should under- 
stand what they are. He should, especially as a 
teacher of little children, examine well the method, 
already referred to, by which they gain all their 
elementary knowledge by themselves, by the exer- 
cise of their own powers. He should study chil- 



Introduction. 49 

dren in the concrete, — take note of the causes 
which operate on the will, which enlist the feel- 
ings, which call forth the intellect, — in order that 
he may use his knowledge with the best effect 
when he takes the place of the great natural edu- 
cator. To change slightly Locke's words, he is to 
'consider the operation of the discerning faculties 
of a child as they are employed about the objects 
which they have to do with ;" and this because it 
is his proper function as a teacher to guide this 
operation. And if he wishes to be an accom- 
plished teacher — a master of his art — he should 
further study the principles of Psychology, the 
true groundwork of his action, in the writings of 
Locke, Dugald Stewart, Bain, Mill, and others, 
who show us what these principles are. This 
study will give a scientific compactness and co- 
ordination to the facts which he has learned by his 
own method of investigation. 

But it may be said, Do you demand all this This is true 0/ 
preparation for the equipment of a mere elemen- te l acher. nary 
tary teacher ? My reply is, I require it because he 
is an elementary teacher. Whatever may be done 
in the case of those children who are somewhat 
advanced in their career, and who have, to some 
extent at least, learnt how to learn, it is most of 
all important that in the beginning of instruction, 
and with a view to gain the most fruitful results 
from that instruction, the earliest teacher should 
be an adept in the Science and Art of Education. 
4 



50 The Science and Art of Education. 

VVe should do as the Jesuits did in their famous 
schools, who, when they found a teacher showing 
real skill and knowledge in teaching the higher 
classes, promoted him to the charge of the lowest. 
There was a wise insight into human nature in 
this. Whether the child shall love or hate knowl- 
edge, — whether his fundamental notions of things 
shall be clear or cloudy, — whether he shall 
advance in his course as an intelligent being, or as 
a mere machine, — whether he shall, at last, leave 
school stuffed with crude, undigested gobbets of 
knowledge, or possessed of knowledge assimilated 
by his own digestion, and therefore a source of 
mental health and strength, — whether he shall be 
lean, atrophied, weak, destitute of the power of 
£** self-government and self-direction, or strong, 

robust, and independent in thought and action, — 
depends almost altogether on the manner in which 
his earliest instruction is conducted, and this again 
on the teacher's acquaintance with the Science and 
Art of Education. 
Know what But besides knowing the subject of instruction, 

feackerl^halfe and knowing the Art of Education founded on 
the Science, the accomplished teacher should also 
know the methods of teaching devised or adopted 
by the most eminent practitioners of his art. A 
teacher, even when equipped in the manner I have 
suggested, Cannot safely dispense with the experi- 
ence of others. In applying principles to prac- 
tice there is always a better or a worse manner of 



Introduction. 5 1 

doing so, and one may learn much from knowing 
how others have overcome the difficulties at which 
we stumble. Many a teacher, when doubtful of 
the principles which constitute his usual rule of 
action, will gain confidence and strength by seeing 
their operation in the practice of others, or may be 
reminded of them when he has for the moment 
lost sight of them. Is it nothing to a teacher that 
Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Quintillian, in ancient 
times; Ascham, Rousseau, Comenius, Sturm, 
Pestalozzi, Ratich, Jacotot, Froebel, Richter, 
Herbart, Beneke, Diesterweg, Arnold, Spencer, 
and a host of others in modern times, have written 
and worked to show him what education is both 
in theory and practice? Does he evince anything 
but his own ignorance by pretending to despise or 
ignore their labors ? What would be said of a 
medical practitioner who knows nothing of the 
works or even the names of Celsus, Galen, Harvey, 
John Hunter, Sydenham, Bell, etc., and who sets 
up his empirical practice against the vast weight of 
their authority and experience? I need not insist 
on this argument ; it is too obvious. Much time, 
therefore, has been devoted, during the year, to 
the History of Education in various countries and 
ages, and to the special work of some of the great 
educational reformers. In particular, the methods 
of Ascham, Ratich, Comenius, Pestalozzi, Jacotot, 
and Froebel have been minutely described and 
criticised. 



52 The Science and Art of Education. 

Results of And now it is only right to endeavor, in con- 

'frincifzel at elusion, to answer the question which may be 
PreStoff. ° f fairly asked, " After all, what have you really ac- 
complished by this elaborate exposition of prin- 
ciples and methods ? You have had no training 
schools for the practice of your students ; it has 
all ended in talk. " In reply to this inquiry or ob- 
jection, I have a few words to say. The students 
whom I have been instructing are for the most part 
teachers already, who are practising their art every 
day. My object has been so forcibly to stamp upon 
their minds a few great principles, so strongly to 
impress them with convictions of the truth of these 
principles, that it should be impossible, in the 
nature of things, for them, as my disciples, to act 
in contradiction or violation of them. Whenever, 
in their practice, they are tempted to resort to drill 
and cram, I know, without being there to see, 
that the principles which have become a part of 
their being, because founded on the truths of 
nature recognized by themselves, rise up before 
them and forbid the intended delinquency. In 
this way, without the apparatus of a training 
school, the work of a training school is done. 

But, in order to show that I am not talking at 
random, I will quote a few passages from exercises 
written by the students themselves, relative to their 
own experience. 

"Before attending these Lectures, my aim was that 
my pupils should gain a certain amount of knowledges 



Introduction. 53 

« now see how far more important is the exercise of 
(hose powers by which knowledge is gained. I am there- 
fore trying to make them think for themselves. This, 
and the principle of repetition, which has been so much 
insisted upon, prevents us from getting over as much 
ground as formerly, but I feel that the work done is 
much more satisfactory than it used to be. I now try to 
adapt my plan to the pupil, not the pupil to my plan. I 
used to prepare a lesson (say in history) with great care; 
all the information which I thus laboriously gained, I 
imparted to my pupils in a few minutes. I now see 
that, though I was benefited by the process, my pupils 
could have gained but little good from it. The fact of 
having a definite end in view gives me confidence in my 
practice. The effect of these Lecture, as a whole, has 
been to give me a new interest in my work." 

"I knew before that the ordinary 'learn by rote' 
method was not real education; but being unacquainted 
with the Science upon which the true art of instruction 
is founded, all my ideas on the subject were vague and 
changeable, and I often missed the very definite results 
of the ' hurdy-gurdy ' system without altogether securing 
any better ones. 

" I have learned that the only education worthy of the 
name is based upon principles derived from the study 
of child-nature, and from the observation of nature's 
methods of developing and training the inherent powers 
of children from the very moment of their birth. I have 
had my eyes open to observe these processes, and now 
see much more in the actions of little children than I 
formerly did. More than this, I have learned to apply 
the principles of nature to the processes of formal edu- 
cation, and by them to test their value and Tightness, so 
that I need no longer be in doubt and darkness, but 



54 The Science and Art of Education. 

have sure grounds to proceed upon under any variation 
of circumstances. 

" Lastly, I have learned to reverence and admire the 
great and good who in different ages and various coun- 
tries have devoted their minds to the principles or the 
practice of education, whose thoughts, whose successes, 
whose very failures are full of instruction for educators 
of the present day, especially for those who, having 
been guided to the sure basis upon which true education 
rests, are in a position to judge of the value of their dif- 
ferent theories and plans, and to choose the good and 
refuse the evil." 

" What you have done for me I endeavor to do for my 
pupils. I make them correct their own errors; indeed, 
do their own work as much as possible. Since you 
have been teaching me, my pupils have progressed in 
mental development as they have never done in all the 
years I have been teaching. Though from want of 
power and early training I have not done you the jus- 
tice which many of your pupils have, still you have set 
your seal ~pon me, and made me aim at being, what I 
was not iormerly, a scientific teacher." 

"... .And now to turn to the modifications introduced 
into my practice by these Lectures. I was delighted 
with them, and was more astonished as each week 
passed at what I heard. New light dawned upon me, 
and I determined to profit by it. I soon saw some of 
the prodigious imperfections in my teaching, and set 
about remedying them. My ' pupils should be self- 
teachers;' then I must treat them as such. I left off 
telling them so much, and made them work more. I 
discontinued correcting their exercises, and made them 
correct them themselves. I made them look over their 



Introduction. 55 

dictation before they wrote it, and, when it was finished, 
referred them to the text-book to see whether they had 
written it correctly. . . . Time would fail me to give in 
detail all the alterations introduced into my practice." 

" In conclusion, considering what my theory and 
practice were when I entered your class, I am convinced 
that the benefits I have derived as regards both are as 
follows: (1) I have learned to observe, (2) to admire, 
(3) to imitate, and (4) to follow, Nature. My theories 
have become based on the firm foundation of principles 
founded on facts; my practice (falling far short of the 
perfection that I aim at attaining) is nevertheless in the 
spirit of it. And although in all probability I shall 
never equal any of these great teachers whose lives and 
labors you have described, yet I know that I shall daily 
improve in my practice if I hold fast to those principles 
that you have laid down. I consider you have shown 
me the value of a treasure that I unconsciously pos- 
sessed — I mean the power of observing Nature, and 
therefore I feel towards you the same sort of gratitude 
that the man feels towards the physician who has re- 
stored his sight." 

These expressions will show that my labors, 
however imperfect, have not ended in mere talk. 

And now it is time to set you free from the 
long demand I have made on your patience. I 
have studiously avoided in this Lecture tickling 
your ears with rhetorical flourishes. My great 
master, Jacotot, has taught me that "rhetoric and 
reason have nothing in common. " I have there- 
fore appealed to your reason. I certainly might 



56 The Science and Art of Education. 

have condensed my matter more; but long ex. 
perience in the art of intellectual feeding has con- 
vinced me that concentrated food is not easy of 
digestion. But for this fault — if it be one — and 
for any other, whether of commission or omission, 
I throw myself on your indulgent consideration. 



The Science and Art of Education. 57 



THE SCIENCE AND ART OF EDUCATION. 

ANALYSIS. 

PAGE 

Introductory 20 

The opinion that there is no Science of Education. . 21 

Germany concedes there is 22 

German teaching superior to ours 23 

It is thought that one who knows a subject can teach 

it 26 

The great problem is to get the pupil to learn 27 

Sometimes a teacher knows too much to teach well. 27 

Work of the College of Preceptors. 27 

Teachers themselves think they have nothing to 

learn about Education 25 

How we should teach the Science of Education 28 

Its principles could not be evolved from present 30 

practice 30 

Nature's system to be followed 31 

Her system must be investigated 32 

First Principle: Body and Mind are interdependent. 32 

Second Principle : Faculty grows by exercise 33 

Third Principle: Exercise made effectual by repeti- 
tion 33 

How we learn: Nature's plan 35 

Definition of Education 36 

How the true artist works 38 

Art based on Nature 38 

Art of teaching based on Nature 38 

Common errors — First case 39 

Second case 39 

Third case 40 



5 3 The Science and Art of Education. 



PAGE 



The mind must be understood 43 

Teaching in its true sense 44 

Not telling or cramming 45 

The pupil must learn everything himself. This is 

the central principle 46 

Knowledge must be the pupil's own 47 

The teacher must know the mind 48 

This is true of the primary teacher also 49 

Know what other eminent teachers have done 50 

Results of teaching the principles at the College of 

Preceptors „ 52 



59 



THE THEORY OR SCIENCE OF 
EDUCATION. 



It is proposed, in this and the following two introduction 
Lectures, to treat of, ist, The Theory or Science 
of Education ; 2d, The Practice or Art of Educa- 
tion ; 3d, Educational Methods, or special appli- 
cations of the Science and Art. 

The Science of Education is sometimes called 
Pedagogy or Paideutics, and the Art of Education 
Didactics. There seems, however, no need for 
these technical terms. The expressions Science 
and Art of Education are explicit, and sufficiently 
answer the purpose. 

The Theory or Science, as distinguished from 
the Practice or Art, embraces an inquiry into the 
principles on which the Practice or Art depends, 
and which gives reasons for the efficiency or in- 
efficiency of that practice. I do not profess in 
this Lecture to construct the Science of Education 
— that still waits for its development. As, how- 
ever, its ultimate evolution depends very much on 
a general recognition of its value and importance, 
I propose to indicate a few of its principles, as well 



6o The Theory or Science of Education. 

as some of the sources from which they may be 
derived ; and further, to show the need for their 
application to the present condition of the art." 

In the progress of knowledge, practice ever pre- 
cedes theory. We do, before we inquire why we 
do. Thus the practice of language goes before 
the investigation into its laws, and the Art before 
the Science of Music. It is the same with Educa- 
tion. The practice has long existed ; but the 
theory has, as yet, been only partially recognized. 
As, however, theory reacts on practice, and im- 
proves'it, we may hope to see the same result in 
Education, when it shall be scientifically investi- 
gated. 

As the terms Education and Instruction will 
frequently occur in these Lectures, it may be con- 
venient at the outset to inquire into their exact 
meaning. 
Derivation of The verb educare, from which we get our word 
Nation.™ UU ~ educate, differs from its primitive educere in this 
respect, that while the latter means to draw forth 
by a single act, the former, as a sort of frequenta- 
tive verb, signifies to draw forth frequently, re- 
peatedly, persistently, and therefore strongly and 
permanently; and in a secondary sense to draw 
forth faculties, to train or educate them. An 
educator is therefore a trainer, whose function it 
is to draw forth persistently, habitually, and per- 
manently the powers of a child, and education is 
the process which he employs for this purpose. 



The Theory or Science of Education. 61 
Then as to Instruction. The Latin verb in- Derivation of 

, c 11 i • i , the term In- 

siruere, from which we derive instruct, means to struction. 
place materials together, not at random, but for a 
purpose — to pile or heap them one upon another 
in an orderly manner, as parts of a preconceived 
whole. Instruction, then, is the orderly placing 
of knowledge in the mind, with a definite object. 
The mere aggregation, by a teacher, in the minds 
of his pupils, of incoherent ideas, gained by 
desultory and unconnected mental acts, is no 
more instruction than heaping bricks and stones 
together is building a house. The true instructor 
is never contented with the mere collection of 
materials, however valuable in themselves, but 
continually seeks to make them subservient to the 
end he has in view. He is an educational Am- 
phion, under whose influence the bricks and 
stones move together to the place where they are 
wanted, and grow into the form of a harmonious 
fabric. 

Instruction, thus viewed, is not, as some con- 
ceive of it, the antithesis of Education, nor gener- 
ally distinct from it. Every educator is an in- 
structor ; for education attains its ends through 
instruction ; but, as will be shown, the instructor 
who is not also consciously an educator fails to 
accomplish the highest aims of his science. The 
iustruction which ends in itself is not complete 
education. 



62 The Theory or Science of Education. 

DEFINITION OF EDUCATION. 

But we will now attempt to give a definition of 
Education. Education, in its widest sense, is a 
general expression that comprehends all the in- 
fluences which operate on the human being, stimu- 
lating his faculties to action, forming his habits, 
moulding his character, and making him what he is. * 
Though so powerfully affected by these influences, 
he may be entirely unconscious of them. They 
are to him as ' ' the wind which bloweth where it 
listeth ; but he knows not whence it cometh nor 
whither it goeth. " They are not, however, less real 
on this account. The circumstances by which he is 
surrounded — the climate, the natural scenery, the 
air he breathes, the food he eats, the moral tone of 
the family life, that of the community — all have 
a share in converting the raw material of human 
nature either into healthy, intelligent, moral and 
religious man, or, on the contrary, in converting 
it into an embodiment of weakness, stupidity, 
wickedness, and misery. Thus external influ- 
ences automatically acting upon a neutral nature 
produce, each after its kind, the most opposite re- 
influences may suits. In this sense the poor little gamin of our 
e^hety™ e streets, who defiles the air with his blasphemies, 

* "Whatever," says Mr. J. S. Mill, "helps to shape 
the human being, to make the individual what he is, or 
hinder him from what he is not, is part of his education." 

— Inaugural Address delivered at St. Andrew s. 



The Theory or Science of Education. 6$ 

whose thoughts are of the dirt dirty, who picks 
our pockets with a clear conscience, has been duly 
educated by the impure atmosphere, the squalid 
misery, the sad examples of act and speech pre- 
sented to him in his daily life — to be the outcast 
that he is. Such instances show the wondrous 
power of the education of circumstances. 

It is a noticeable characteristic of this kind of 
education, that its pupils rarely evince of their 
own accord any desire for improvement, and are 
in this respect scarcely distinguishable from bar- 
barians. The savages of our race remain savages, 
not because they have not the same original facul- 
ties as ourselves — faculties generally capable of 
improvement — but because they have no desire for 
improvement. Nature does indeed furnish her 
children with elementary lessons. She teaches 
them the use of the senses, language, and the 
qualities of matter, but she leaves them to procure 
advanced knowledge for themselves, while she im- 
plants in their minds neither motive nor desire for 
its acquisition. The differentia of the savage is, 
that he has rarely any wish for self-elevation. It 
is sad to think how many savages of this kind we 
have still amongst ourselves ! 

But education is conscious as well as uncon- Education re- 

. ii- suits in civili- 

scious. Some cause or other suggests the desire zation. 
for improvement. The teacher appears in the 
field, and civilization begins its career. The civil- 
ization which we contrast with barbarism is simply 



64 The Theory or Science of Education, 

the result of that action of mind on mind which 
carries forward the teaching of Nature — in other 
words, of what we call education. Where there 
is no specific conscious education, there is no 
civilization. Where education is fully appreciated, 
the result is high civilization; and generally, as 
education advances, civilization advances in pro- 
portion, and thus affords a measure of its in- 
fluence. It follows, then, that all the civilization 
that exists is ultimately due to the educator, in- 
cluding, of course, the educator in religion. 
The Ivor* of Education, then, as we may now more specifi- 

tke educator. „ , _ . - . . . . 

cally define it, is the training carried on con- 
sciously and continuously by the educator, and its 
object is to convert desultory and accidental force 
into organized action, and its ultimate aim is to 
make the child operated on by it capable of be- 
coming a healthy, intelligent, moral, and religious 
man ; or it may be described as the systematiza- 
tion of all the influences which the Science of 
Education recognizes as capable of being em- 
ployed by one human being to develop, direct, 
and maintain vital force in another, with a view to 
the formation of habits. 

This conception of the end of education defines 
the function, of the educator. He has to direct 
forces already existing to a definite object, and in 
proportion as his direction is wise and judicious 
will the object be secured. 

He has in the child before him an embodiment 



7 he Theory or Science of Education. 65 

of animal, intellectual, and moral forces, the ac- 
tion of which is irregular and fortuitous. These 
forces he has to develop further, direct, and 
organize. The child has an animal nature, af- 
fected by external influences, and endowed with 
vital energies, which may be used or abused to 
his weal or woe. He has also an intellectual 
nature, capable of indefinite development, which 
may be employed in the acquisition of knowledge, 
and gain strength by the very act of acquisition ; 
but which may, on the other hand, through 
neglect, waste its powers, or by perversion abuse 
them. He has, moreover, a moral nature capable 
by cultivation of becoming a means of usefulness 
and happiness to himself and others, or of becom- 
ing by its corruption the fruitful source of misery 
to himself and the community. 

It is the business of the educator, by his action 
and influence on these forces, to secure their bene- 
ficial and avert their injurious manifestation — to 
convert this undisciplined energy into a fund of 
organized, self-acting power. 

In order to do this efficiently, he ought to Tk* edttcator 

° must know the 

understand the nature of the phenomena that he chad. 
has to deal with ; and his own training as a 
teacher ought especially to have this object in view. 
Without this knowledge, much that he does may 
be really injurious, and much more of no value. 

To speak technically, then, a knowledge of 
what is going on in his pupils' bodies, minds, and 
5 



66 The Theory or Science of Education. 

hearts, their subjective process, will regulate the 
means which he adopts to direct the action of 
those bodies, minds, and hearts, which is his ob- 
jective process — the one being a counterpart of 
the other — and the consideration of what this 
knowledge consists of, and how it may be best 
applied, constitutes the Theory or Science of Edu^ 
cation. 
"Practical" I am well aware that the mention of the words 

ieackers object m m 

to theory— call- " 1 heory of Education, and the assumption that 

ing it quack- ,.'.'. 

ery. the educator ought to be educated in it, is apt to 

excite some degree of opposition in the minds of 
those who claim especially the title of ■ ' practical 
teachers," and who therefore characterize this 
theory as "a quackery." Now a quack, the dic- 
tionary tells us, is "one who practises an art with- 
out any knowledge of its principles." There 
seems, then, to be a curious infelicity of language 
in calling a subject which embraces principles, 
which especially insists upon principles, a quack- 
ery. If education, thus viewed, is a quackery, 
then the same must be said of medicine, law, and 
theology; and it would follow that the greatest 
proficient in the principles of these sciences must 
be the greatest quack — a remarkable reductio ad 
absurdum. This position, then, will perhaps 
hardly be maintained. 

They ask for But there is a second line of defence. The 

ihe practical. 

practical teachers say — and, doubtless, say sin- 
cerely — "We don't want any Theory of Educa- 



the Theory or Science of Education. 67 

tion ; our aim is practical, we want nothing but 
the practical." We agree with them as to the 
value, the indispensable value, of the practical, 
but not as to the assumed antagonism between 
theory and practice. So far from being in any 
strict sense opposed, they are identical. Theory 
is the general, practice the particular, expression of 
the same facts. The words of the theory interpret 
the practice ; the propositions of the science in- 
terpret the silent language of the art. The one 
represents truth i?i posse, the other in esse; the 
one, as Dr. Whewell remarks, involves, the other 
evolves, principles. So in Education, theory and 
practice go hand-in-hand ; and the practical man 
who denounces theory is a theorist in fact.* He 
does not of course drive blindly on, without car- 
ing whither he is going; the conception, then, 
which he forms of his end, in his theory. Nor 
does he act without considering the means for 
securing his object. This consideration of the 
means as suitable or unsuitable for his purpose, is 
again his theory. In fact, the reasons which 
he would give for his actual practice, to account 
for it or defend it, constitute, whether he admits 
it or not, his theory of action. All that we ask 



* " Theory and practice always act upon each other; 
one can see from their works what men's opinions are ; 
and from their opinions predict what they will do." — 
Goethe. 



tzce. 



68 The Theory or Science of Education. 

is, that this conception of theory, in relation to 
education, should be extended and reduced to 
principles. 
Principles m Mr. Grove, the eminent Q.C., in an address 
j/ correct pral given at St. Mary's Hospital, forcibly expresses 
the same opinion: "If there be one species of 
cant," he says, "more detestable than another, it 
is that which eulogizes what is called the practical 
man as contradistinguished from the scientific. If 
by practical man, is meant one who, having a 
mind well stored with scientific and general in- 
formation, has his knowledge chastened and his 
theoretic temerity subdued, by varied experience, 
nothing can be better ; but if, as is commonly 
meant by the phrase, a practical man means one 
whose knowledge is only derived from habit or 
traditional system, such a man has no resource to 
meet unusual circumstances ; such a man has no 
plasticity ; he kills a man according to rule, and 
consoles himself, like Moliere's doctor, by the 
reflection that a dead man is only a dead man, 
but that a deviation from received practice is an 
injury to the whole profession." 

Practical teachers may, however, admit that 
they have a theory, an empirical theory, of their 
own which governs their practice, and yet deny 
that the generalization of this theory into prin- 
ciples would be of any value to themselves or to 
the cause of education. They may go further 
still, and deny both that there is or can be any 



The Theory or Science of Education, 69 

Science of Education. Some do, indeed, deny 

both these positions. It has already been ad- The Science e/ 

r J Education tn a 

mitted that the Science of Education is as yet in rudimentary 

' condition. 

a rudimentary condition. There is at present no 
such code of indisputable laws to test and govern 
educational action as there is in many other 
sciences. Its principles lie disjointed and un- 
organized in the sciences of Physiology, Psychol- 
ogy, Ethics, and Logic, and will only be gath- 
ered together and codified when we rise to a high 
conception of its value and importance. Even 
now, however, they are acknowledged in the dis- 
cussion of such questions as the best method of 
training the natural faculties of children — the 
order of their development — the subjects proper 
for the curriculum of instruction — book teaching 
versus oral — the differentia of female education — 
school discipline — moral training, and a multi- 
tude of others which will one day be decided by a 
reference, not to traditional usage, but to the 
principles of the Science of Education. The 
fact, then, that this science is not yet objectively 
constructed is no argument against our attempt- 
ing to construct it, and we maintain that the per- 
tinacious adherence to the notion of the all-suf- 
ficiency of routine forms the greatest difficulty in 
the way of securing the object. It is, however, 
mainly for the sake of the teachers of the next 
generation that the importance of a true concep- 
tion of the value of principles in education is in- 
sisted on, 



70 7 'he Theory or Science of Education. 

It follows, then, that practical teachers who de- 
sire to see practice improved — and surely there is 
need of improvement — ought to admit that there 
is the same obligation resting on the educator to 
study the principles of his art as there is on the 
physician to study anatomy and therapeutics, and 
on the civil engineer to study mechanics. The 
art, in each of these cases, has a scientific basis, 
and the practitioner who desires to be successful 
in it — to be the master and not the slave of rou- 
tine — must studiously investigate its fundamental 
principles. 
Evils of un- But there is another argument against routine 

scientific teach- . . ... . . , _ 

ing. teaching which ought not to be omitted. It is 

founded on the effect which such teaching pro- 
duces on the pupil. Those teachers who are 
themselves the slaves of routine make their pupils 
slaves also. Without intellectual freedom them- 
selves, they cannot emancipate their pupils. The 
machine generates machines. They make their 
pupils mechanically apt and dexterous in processes, 
and in this way train them to practice ; but not 
appreciating principles themselves, they cannot 
train them to principles. Yet this latter training, 
which essentially involves reasoning and thought, 
ought to be the continual and persistent aim of 
the educator. He has very imperfectly accom- 
plished the end of his being if he dismisses his 
pupils as merely mechanical artisans, knowing 
the how, but ignorant of the why / expert in pro- 



The Theory or Science of Education. 71 

cesses, but uninformed in principles ; instructed, 
but not truly educated. It is the possession of 
principles which gives mental life, courage, and 
power : the courage which is not daunted where 
routine fails, the power which not only firmly 
directs the established machinery, but corrects its 
apparent eccentricities, can repair it when it is 
deranged, and adjust its forces to new emergen- 
cies. Take the case of a routine pupil to whom 
you propose an arithmetical problem. His first 
inquiry is, not what are the conditions of the 
question, and the principles involved in its 
solution, but what rule he is to work it by.* 
This is the question of a slave, who can 
do nothing without orders from his master. 
Well, you give him the rule. The rule is, in fact, 
a resume of principles which, some scientific man 
has deduced from concrete facts, and which rep- 
resents and embodies the net result of various 
processes of his mind upon them. But what is it 
to our routine pupil? To him it is merely an 
order given by a slave-driver, and he hears in it 
the words, — Do this; don't do that; don't ask 

* MM. Demogeot and Montucci, in their Report to 
the French Government on English Secondary Instruc- 
tion (Paris, 1867), severely comment on the mechanical 
spirit in which mathematics are generally taught in our 
schools through our taking little account of the reason, 
and making processes rather than principles the end of 
instruction (p. 120). 



)2 The Theory or Science of Education, 

why; do exactly as I bid you. He reads his 
rule, his order, does what he is bid, grinds away 
at his work, and arrives at the end of it as much a 
slave as ever, and he is a slave because his master 
has made him one. 

Educators, indeed, like other men, come 
under two large categories, which may be de- 
scribed in the pregnant words of the accomplished 
author of the ' ' Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. " 
"All economical and practical wisdom," he says, 
"is an extension or variation of the following 
arithmetical formula, 2 -}- 2 = 4. Every philo- 
sophical proposition has the more general char- 
acter of the expression a *-j- b = c. We are merely 
operatives, empirics, and egotists, until we begin 
to think in letters instead of figures. " 

Now the mere routine teacher belongs to the 

former, and the true educator to the latter class, 

and each will stamp his own image on his pupils. 

When founded All that has been said resolves itself, then, into 

on principles 

education be- the proposition that a man engaged in a profes- 

comes a j>rofes- , , , r f- 

sion. sion, as distinguished from a mere handicraft, 

ought not only to know what he is doing, but 
why ; the one constituting his practice, the other 
his theory. He cannot give a reason for the 
faith that is in him, unless he examines the grounds 
of that faith, — unless he examines them per se, 
and traces their connection with each other and 
with the whole body of truth. The possession of 
this higher kind of knowledge, the knowledge of 



The Theory or Science of Education. 73 

principles and laws, is, strictly speaking, his only 
warrant for the pretension that he is a professional 
man, and not a mere mechanic. Society has 
not, indeed, hitherto demanded this professional 
equipment for the educator, nor has the edu- 
cator himself generally recognized the obligation, 
aptly stated by Dr. Arnold, that, "in what- 
ever it is our duty to act, those matters also 
it is our duty to study," and hence the present 
condition of education in England. Education 
can never take its proper rank among the learned 
professions, that proper rank being really the 
highest of them all, until teachers see that there 
really are principles of Education, and that it is 
their duty to study them. 

But there is another mode of studying prin- Principles may 

. , ° r be drawn from 

ciples besides investigating them per se. They practice. 
may be studied in the practice of those who have 
mastered them. 

It is clear that a man may have carefully in- 
vestigated the principles of art, and yet fail in the 
application of them. This generally arises from 
his not having fully comprehended them. He 
has omitted to notice or appreciate something 
which, if he knew it, would answer his purpose ; 
or from want of early training finds it difficult to 
deduce facts from principles, practice from 
theory. In such a case there is an available re- 
source. Others have seen what he has failed to 
see, have firmly grasped what he has not compre- 



74 The Theory or Science of Education, 

hended, have made the necessary deductions, and 
embodied them in their own practice. Let the 
learner, then, in the Science of Education, study 
that practice, and trace it in the correspondence 
between the principles which he but partially ap- 
preciates, and their practical application in the 

study the great methods of those who have thought them out. 

masters. j n ot h er WO rds, let him study the great masters of 

his art, and learn from them the philosophy which 
teaches by examples. This study, so far from 
being inconsistent with the Theory of Education, 
is, indeed, a necessary part of it. We may all 
learn something from the successful experience of 
others. De Quincey (as quoted by Mr. Quick in 
his valuable "Essays on Educational Reformers") 
has pointed out that a man who takes up any pur- 
suit, without knowing what advances others have 
made in it, works at a great disadvantage. He 
does not apply his strength in the right direction, he 
troubles himself about small matters and neglects 
great, he falls into errors that have long since been 
exploded. To this Mr. Quick pertinently adds: 
"I venture to think, therefore, that practical 
men, in education, as in most other things, may 
derive benefit from the knowledge of what has 
been already said and done by the leading men 
engaged in it both past and present." Notwith- 
standing the obvious common-sense of this obser- 
vation, it is undeniably true that the great major- 
ity of teachers are profoundly ignorant of the 



The Theory or Science of Education. 75 

sayings and doings of the authorities in Educa- 
tion. Their own empirical methods, their own 
self-devised principles of instruction, generally 
form their entire equipment for their profession, 
I have myself questioned on this subject scores of 
middle-class teachers, and have not met with so 
many as half-a-dozen who knew anything more 
than the names, and often not these, of Quintilian, 
Ascham, Comenius, Locke, Pestalozzi, Jacotot, 
Arnold, and Herbert Spencer. What should we 
say of a physician who was entirely unacquainted 
with the researches of Hippocrates, Galen, Har- 
vey, Sydenham, the Hunters, and Bright? 

In the foregoing remarks I have endeavored to 
show that there is, and must be, a Theory of 
Education underlying the practice, however mani- 
fested, and to vindicate the conception of it from 
the contempt sometimes thoughtlessly thrown 
upon it by practical teachers. 

But it is important now to attempt to ascertain 
what resources, in the shape of principles, hints, 
and suggestions, it furnishes to the educator in 
his threefold capacity of director of physical, 
mental, and moral education. 

The conception we have formed of the educator The teacher 

. . . . ... must knoi" the 

in relation to his work requires him to be pos- pupil. 
sessed of a knowledge of the being whom he has 
to control and guide. "Whatever questions," 
says Dr. Youmans, of New York, "of the proper 
subjects to be taught, their relative claims, or the 



76 The Theory or Science of Education. 

true methods of teaching them, may arise, there 
is a prior and fundamental inquiry into the 
nature, capabilities, and requirements of the being 
to be taught. A knowledge of the being to be 
trained, as it is the basis of all intelligent culture, 
must be the first necessity of the teacher" (p. 404).* 

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

He needs fhy si- Viewed merely as an animal, this being is a 
edge. " depository of vital forces, which may be excited or 

depressed, well-directed or misdirected. These 
forces are resident in a complicated structure of 
limbs, senses, breathing, digesting, and blood-cir- 
culating apparatus, etc. ; and their healthy mani- 
festation depends much (of course not altogether) 
upon circumstances under the control of the edu- 
cator. If he understands the phenomena, he will 
modify the circumstances for the benefit of the 
child ; if he does not understand them, the child 
will suffer from his ignorance. The daily 
experience of the school-room sufficiently illus- 
trates this point. Place a large number of 
children in a small room with the windows 
shut down, and detain them at their lessons for 
two or three hours together. Then take note 
of what you see. The impure air, breathed 

* "The Culture demanded by Modern Life: a series 
of addresses and arguments on the claims of scientific 
education. Edited by Dr. Youmans, New York, 1867." 



The Theory or Science of Education. 77 

and rebreathed over and over again, has lost 
its vitality — has become poisonous. It reacts 
on the blood, and this again on the brain. The 
teacher as well as the children all suffer from the 
same cause. He languidly delivers a lesson to 
pupils who more languidly receive it. They are 
no longer able to concentrate their attention. 
They answer his half-understood questions care- 
lessly and incorrectly. Not appreciating the true 
state of the case, he treats them as wilfully indiffer- 
ent, and punishes the offenders, as they feel, un- 
justly. They retain this impression ; the cordial 
relation subsisting before is rudely disturbed, and 
his moral influence over them is impaired. We 
have here a natural series of causes and con- 
sequences. The state of the air, a physical cause, 
acts first on the bodies, then on the minds, and 
lastly on the hearts of the pupils ; the last being, 
perhaps, the most important consequence of the 
three. Now in this case both teachers and pupils 
suffer from neglect of those laws of health which a 
knowledge of Physiology would have supplied. 
It is unnecessary to dwell upon the obvious ap- 
plications of such knowledge to diet, sleep, clean- 
liness, clothing, etc. 

Knowledge of this kind has been strangely over- 
looked in the educator's own education, though 
so much of his efficiency depends on his acting 
himself, and causing others to act, on the full re- 
cognition of its value. Education has too gener- 



7 8 Tbe fbeofy or Science of Education. 

ally been regarded in its relation to the mind, and 
the co-operation of the body in the mind's action 
Words o/ Dr. has been forgotten. Those who listened to the 
masterly lecture, delivered a lew years ago at this 
College by Dr. Youmans, on "The Scientific 
Study of Human Nature," will remember his elo- 
quent vindication of the claims of the body to 
that consideration which educators too frequently 
deny it, and the consequent importance to them 
of sound physiological knowledge. With singular 
force of reasoning he showed that the healthiness 
of the brain, as the organic seat of the mind, is 
the essential basis of the teacher's operations ; that 
the efficiency of the brain depends in a great 
degree on the healthy condition of the stomach, 
lungs, heart, and skin ; and that this condition is 
very much affected by the teacher's application 
of the laws of health as founded on Physiology. 
His general remarks on education, and especially 
on physical education, are too valuable to be 
omitted : 

"The imminent question," he says (p. 406), 
"is, how may the child and youth be developed 
healthfully and vigorously, bodily, mentally, and 
morally ? and science alone can answer it by a 
statement of the laws upon which that develop- 
ment depends. Ignorance of these laws must in- 
evitably involve mismanagement. That there is 
a large amount of mental perversion and absolute 
stupidity, as well as bodily disease, produced in 



Combe. 



The Theory or Science of Education, 79 

school, by measures which operate to the pre- 
judice of the growing brain, is not to be doubted ; 
that dulness, indocility, and viciousness are fre- 
quently aggravated by teachers, incapable of dis- 
criminating between their mental and bodily 
causes, is also undeniable ; while that teachers 
often miserably fail to improve their pupils, and 
then report the result of their own incompetency 
^failures of nature, — all may have seen, although 
it is now proved that the lowest imbeciles are not 
sunk beneath the possibility of elevation. " 

I give one short quotation from Dr. Andrew Words of Dr. 
Combe, to the same effect. " I cannot," he says, 
' ' regard any teacher, or parent, as fully and con- 
scientiously qualified for his duties, unless he has 
made himself acquainted with the nature and gen- 
eral laws of the animal economy, and with the direct 
relation in which these stand to the principles of 
education." Dr. Brigham also advises those who 
undertake to cultivate and discipline the mind, to 
acquaint themselves with human anatomy and 
physiology. 

All these authorities agree, then, that educators 
have a better chance of improving the physical 
condition of their pupils if they are themselves ac- 
quainted with the laws of health ; and they insist, 
moreover, that the health of the body is not only 
desirable for its own sake, but because, from the 
interdependence of mind and body, the mens sana 
depends so much on the corpus sanum. This 



8o The Theory or Science of Education. 

truth is strikingly, though paradoxically, expressed 
seau/ ° US ' by Rousseau, when he says, "The weaker the 
body is, the more it commands ; the stronger it is 
the better it obeys ;" and when he also says, 
"Make your pupil robust and healthy, in order 
to make him reasonable and wise." 

In short, hundreds of writers have written on 
this subject for the benefit of educators, thousands 
of whom have never even heard of, much less 
read, their writings; or, if they have, pursue the 
even tenor of their way, doing just as they did 
before, and ignorantly laughing at Hygiene and 
all the aid she offers them. 
The body Physical education also comprehends the train- 

skould be J r 

trained. ing of special faculties and functions, with a view 

to improve their condition. The trainer of 
horses, dogs, singing birds, boxers, boat crews, 
and cricketers, all make a study, more or less pro- 
found, of the material they have to deal with — all 
except the educator, the trainer of trainers, who 
generally leaves things to take their chance, or as- 
sumes that the object will be sufficiently gained 
by the exercises of the playground and the gym- 
nastic apparatus. It would be easy to show that 
this self-education, although most valuable, is 
insufficient, and ought to be supplemented by the 
appliances of Physiological Science. This science 
would suggest, in some cases, remedies for 
natural defects ; in others, suitable training for 
natural weakness; in others, still graver reasons 



The Theory or Science of Education. 81 

for checking the injurious tendency, so common 
amongst children, to over-exertion ; and in all 
these cases would be directly ancillary to the pro- 
fessed object of the educator as a trainer of intel- 
lectual and moral forces. 

The effect, too, of the condition of the mind on 
that of the body — the converse reciprocal action 
— is an important part of this subject; but there 
is no time to enter on it. 

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

But let us next consider the relation of the edu- Dr. Youmans 
tor to the intellectual education of his pupils. qu ° e ' 
However willing he may be to repudiate his re- 
sponsibility for the training of their bodies, he 
cannot deny his responsibility for the training of 
their minds. But here Dr. Youmans' words, 
already quoted, apply with especial force — "A 
knowledge of the being to be trained, as it is the 
basis of intelligent culture, must be the first neces- 
sity of the teacher," and few perhaps will venture 
to argue against those that follow : "Education," 
he says, "is an art, like locomotion, mining, and 
bleaching, which may be pursued empirically or 
rationally — as a blind habit, or under intelligent 
guidance : and the relations of science to it are 
precisely the same as to all the other arts — to as- 
certain their conditions, and give law to their 
processes. What it has done for navigation, tele- 
graphy, and war, it will also do for culture." 
6 



82 The Theory or Science of Education. 
The educator The educator of the mind ought, then, to be 

should know ° ' ' 

the mind. acquainted with its phenomena and its natural 

operations ; he ought to know what the mind 
does when it perceives, remembers, judges, etc., 
as well as the general laws which govern these 
processes. He sees these processes in action con- 
tinually in his pupils, and has thus abundant op- 
portunities of studying them objectively. He is 
conscious of them, too, in his own intellectual 
life, and there may study them subjectively ; but 
the investigation, thus limited, is confessedly diffi- 
cult, and will be much facilitated by his making 
an independent study of them as embodied in 
the science of Psychology or Mental Philosophy. 
This science deals with everything which belongs 
to the art which he is daily practising, will explain 
to him some matters which he has found difficult, 
will open his eyes to others which he has failed to 
see, will suggest to him the importance of truths 
which he has hitherto deemed valueless, and, in 
short, the mastery of it will endow him with a 
power of which he will constantly feel the in- 
fluence in his practice. His pupils are continually 
engaged in observing outward objects, ascertain- 
ing their nature by analysis, comparing them 
together, classifying them, gaining mental concep- 
tions of them, recalling these conceptions by 
memory, judging of their relations to each other, 
reasoning on these relations, imagining concep- 
tions, inventing new combinations of them, gen- 



The Theory or Science of Education. §3 

eralizing by induction from particulars, tracing 
effects to causes and causes to effects. Now, 
every one of these acts forms a part of the daily 
mental life of the pupils whom the educator is to 
train. Will not the educator, who understands Knoroing the 

r . . . mental powers* 

them as a part 01 his science, be more com- he can train 
petent to direct them to profitable action than 
one who merely recognizes them as a part 
of his empirical routine? Suppose that the 
object is to cultivate the power of observation. 
Now the power of observation may vary in ac- 
curacy from the careless glance which leaves 
scarcely any impression behind it, to the close 
penetrating scrutiny of the experienced observer, 
which leaves nothing unseen. Mr. J. S. Mill 
(Logic i. 408) has pointed out the difference be- 
tween observers. "One man," he says, "from 
inattention, or attending only in the wrong place, 
overlooks half of what he sees ; another sets down 
much more than he sees, confounding it with 
what he imagines, or with what he infers ; another 
takes note of the kind of all the circumstances, 
but, being inexpert in estimating their degree, 
leaves the quantity of each vague and uncertain ; 
another sees indeed the whole, but makes such 
awkward division of it into parts, throwing things 
into one mass which ought to be separated, and 
separating others which might more conveniently 
be considered as one, that the result is much the 
same, sometimes even worse, than if no analysis 



84 The Theory or Science of Education. 

had been attempted at all. To point out," he 
proceeds, "what qualities of mind, or modes of 
mental culture, fit a man for being a good ob- 
server, is a question which belongs to the theory of 
education. There are rules of self-culture which 
render us capable of observing, as there are arts 
for strengthening the limbs." 
Serving- /ow- But to ret urn to our educator, who, having 
ers - been educated himself in Mental Science, desires 

to make his pupils good observers. He recog- 
nizes the fact that, to make them observe ac- 
curately, he must first cultivate the senses con- 
cerned in observing; he must train the natural 
eye to see, that is, to perceive accurately — by no 
means an instinctive faculty; for this he must 
cultivate the power of attention ; he must lead 
them to perceive the parts in the whole, the whole 
in the parts, of the object observed, calling on the 
analytical faculty for the first operation, the synthet- 
ical for the second ; he must invite comparison 
with other like and unlike objects, for the detec- 
tion of difference in the one case, and of similarity 
in the other, and so on. Is it probable that the 
teacher entirely ignorant of the science of Psy- 
chology, and the educator furnished with its re- 
sources, will make their respective pupils equally 
accurate observers ? 
Training to It would not be difficult to show that a knowl- 

edge of Logic, as " the science of reasoning" or of 
the formal laws of thought should also be a part 



reason. 



The Theory or Science of Education. 85 

of the equipment of the accomplished educator. 
The power of reasoning is a natural endowment of 
his pupils ; but the power of correct reasoning, 
like that of observing, requires training and culti- 
vation. But we cannot dwell on this point. 

In further illustration of the main argument, I 
beg to refer my hearers to the very ingenious 
lecture lately delivered at this college by my 
friend Mr. Lake, on "The Application of Mental 
Science to Teaching," and especially to teaching 
Writing, wherein he shows that even that mechani- 
cal art may be made a means of real mental train- 
ing to the pupil. He proves that Muscular Sensi- 
bility, Sensation, Thought, Will, as well as the 
nascent sense of Artistic Taste, are all involved in 
the subjective process of the pupil ; that, in accord- 
ance with this, the educated educator frames the 
objective process, through which he develops the 
pupil's mind, and to some extent his moral char- 
acter, and thus makes him a practical proficient in 
his art. Mr. Lake's lecture is probably the first 
attempt ever made to show the direct practical 
bearing of physiological and psychological knowl- 
edge on the art of teaching, and deserves the 
thoughtful consideration of all educators. This 
same Mental Science is also applicable to the 
teaching of Reading and Arithmetic. Indeed, I 
am persuaded — and I speak from some experience 
— that these elementary arts may be so taught as 
to become, not only "instruction," but true 



86 The Theory or Science of Education. 

"education," to the child; not merely, as they 
are generally regarded, "instruments of educa- 
tion, " but education itself. Observation, memory, 
judgment, reasoning, invention, and pleasurable 
associations with the art of learning, may all be 
cultivated by a judicious application of the prin- 
ciples of Mental Science. Mulhauser, and Manly 
(of the City of London School), have proved this 
for Writing, Jacotot for Reading, and Pestalozzi for 
Arithmetic. When this truth is acknowledged, it 
will be felt more generally than it is now, that the 
most pretentious schemes and curricula of educa- 
tion are, after all, comparatively valueless if they 
do not secure for the pupil the power of doing 
common things well. This, however, is a theme 
which would require a lecture by itself for its ade- 
quate treatment. 

MORAL EDUCATION. 

The moral But the child whom we have considered as the 

forces. object of the educator's operations has moral as 

well as physical and intellectual faculties ; and the 
development of these, with the view of forming 
character, is a transcendently important part of the 
educator's work. This child has feelings, deskes, 
a will and a conscience, which are to be devel- 
oped and guided. Here, too, as in the other 
cases, Nature has given elementary teaching, and 
elicited desultory and instinctive action ; but her 



The Theory or Science of Education. 87 

lessons are insufficient, and require to be supple- 
mented by the educator's. 

The child, as already said, is a moral being, 
but his moral principles are crude and inconsist- 
ent. Acted on by the impulse of the moment, he 
follows out the promptings of his will, without any 
regard to personal or relative consequences ; and 
if the will is naturally strong, even the experience 
of injurious consequences does not, of itself, re- 
strain him. Self-love induces him to regard every- 
thing that he wishes to possess as rightfully his 
own. He says by his actions, "Creation's heir, 
the world — the world is mine." He is therefore 
indifferent to the rights of others, and resents all 
opposition to his self-seeking. He is also indiffer- 
ent to the feelings of others, and often tyrannizes 
over those who are weaker than himself. His un- 
bounded curiosity impels him incessantly to gain 
knowledge. He examines everything that inter- 
ests him ; acquires both ideas and expressions by 
listening to conversation ; breaks his toys to see 
how they are made ; displays also his constructive 
ability by cutting out boats and paper figures. 
But he has sympathy as well as curiosity. He 
makes friends, learns to love them, to yield up his 
own inclinations to theirs ; imitates their sayings 
and doings, good and bad ; adopts their notions, 
becomes like them. He has also a conscience, 
which, when awakened, decides, though in an un- 
certain manner, on the moral quality of his ac- 



88 The Theory or Science of Education, 

tions ; and lastly, he has a will, which is swayed 
by this self-love, curiosity, sympathy, and con- 
science. 
Plan to train This is a slight sketch of the moral forces which 
the educator has to control and direct. Now 
every teacher is conscious that he can/ and does 
every day, by his personal character, by the eco- 
nomic arrangements of the school, by his general 
discipline, by special treatment of individual cases, 
exercise a considerable influence over these moral 
phenomena ; and must confess that the extent of 
this influence is generally measured by his own 
knowledge of human nature, and that when he 
fails it is because he forgets or is ignorant of some 
elementary principle of that nature. If he allows 
this, he must allow that a larger acquaintance with 
the principles on which human beings act, — the 
motives which influence them, — the objects at 
which they commonly aim, — the passions, desires, 
characters, manners which appear in the world 
around him and in his own constitution, — would 
proportionately increase his influence. 
The educator But these are the very matters illustrated by the 
M°orai Phiioso- Science of Morals, or Moral Philosophy, and the 
* hy ' educator will be greatly aided in his work by know- 

ing its leading principles. 

For what is the object of moral training? Is it 
not to give a wise direction to the moral powers, — 
to encourage virtuous inclinations, sentiments, and 
passions, and to repass those that are evil, — to 



The Theory or Science of Education. 89 

cultivate habits of truthfulness, obedience, indus- 
try, temperance, prudence, and respect for the 
rights of others, with a view to the formation of 
character? 

This enumeration of the objects of moral train- 
ing presents a wide field of action for the educa- 
tor; yet a single day's experience in any large 
school will probably supply the occasion for his 
dealing with every one of them. How important 
it is, then, that he should be well furnished with 
resources. 

Every earnest educator, moreover, will confess 
that he has much to learn, especially in morals, 
from his pupils. To be successful, he must study 
his own character in theirs, as well as theirs in his 
own. Coleridge has well put this in these lines : 

" O'er wayward childhood would'st thou hold firm rule, 
And sun thee in the light of happy faces ? 
Love, Hope, and Patience — these must be thy graces; 
And in thine own heart let them first keep school." 

A little story from Chaucer illustrates the same 
point. I give it in his own words: "A philos- 
opher, upon a tyme, that wolde hav bete his dis- 
ciple for his grete trespas, for which he was gretly 
amoeved, and brought a yerde to scourge the child; 
and whan the child saugh the yerde, he sayde to 
his maister, ' What thenke ye to do ? ' 'I wolde 
bete the,' quod the maister, 'for thi correccioun.' 
'Forsothe,' quod the child, 'ye oughte first cor- 



9© The Theory or Science cj Education, 

recte youresilf that han lost al youre pacience foi 
the gilt of a child. ' Forsothe,' quod the maister, 
al wepying, ' thou saist soth ; hav thou the yerde, 
my deere sone, and correcte me for myn impa* 
cience.'" This master was learning, we see, in 
the school of his own heart, and his pupil was his 
teacher. 

Time does not allow of our entering more in de- 
tail into the question of moral training, and show- 
ing that the great object of moral, like that of 
physical and intellectual, education is to develop 
force, with a view to the pupil's self-action. Un- 
less this point is gained — -.and it cannot be gained 
by perceptive teaching — little is gained. Our 
pupil's charactei is not to be one merely for holi- 
day show, but for the daily duties of life — a char 
acter which will not be the sport of every wind of 
doctrine, but one in which virtue — moral strength 
— is firmly embodied. Such a character can only 
be formed by making the child himself a co-opera- 
tor in the process of formation. 

If I have not specially referred to religious as a 
part of moral education, it is because no truly re- 
ligious educator can fail to make it a part of his 
system of means. As for the case of the teacher 
whose every-day life shows that he is not influenced 
himself by the religion which he, as a matter of 
form, imposes upon his pupils, I have great diffi- 
culty in conceiving of him as a teacher of morals 
at all. 



The Theory or Science of Education. 91 
I have now completed the general view I pro- The teacher 

, , _ , , ~ , , should know 

posed to take of the relation 01 the educator to his business. 
his work ; and the gist of all that I have said is 
contained in the simple proposition, that he ought 
to know his business, if he wishes to accomplish 
its objects in the best way. The deductions from 
this proposition are, — that, as his business consists 
in training physical, mental, and moral forces, he 
ought to understand the nature of these forces, 
both in their statical and dynamical condition, at 
rest and in action, and should therefore study 
Physiology, Psychology, Ethics, and Logic, which 
explain and illustrate so many of the phenomena ; * 
that he should, moreover, study them, as embodied 
in the practice of the great masters of his art. In- 
spired thus with a noble ideal of his work, he will 
gradually realize it in his practice and become an ac- 
complished educator. He will meet with many dif- 
ficulties in this self-training, but the advantages he 
gains will more than compensate him. None can 



* The late Mr. Fletcher, Inspector of Schools, says : 
" The intellectual faculties can never be exercised thor- 
oughly but by men of sound logical training, perfect in 
the art of teaching ; hence there exist so few highly- 
gifted teachers. In fact, there are none but men of some 
genius who are said to have peculiar tact, which it is im- 
possible to imitate: but I am anxious to see every part 
of the fine art of instruction redeemed from hopeless 
concealment under such a word, and made the subject of 
rational study and improved training." 



92 The Theory or Science of Education* 

know better than himself — none so well — the trials, 
disappointments, faintings of heart, and defeats that 
his utmost skill cannot always turn into victories, 
which he will have to encounter ; but then, on the 
other hand, few can know as he does those mo- 
ments of wonderful happiness which fall to his lot 
when he sees his work going on well ; when, in 
the improved health, the increased intellectual and 
moral power of his pupils, he recognizes the result 
of measures which he has devised, of principles 
which he has learnt from the school without, from 
the school within, and from the ripe experience 
and thought of the fellow-laborers of his craft. At 
such moments, fraught with the spirit of the great 
artist, who exclaimed in his enthusiasm, "Ed io 
anche sono pittore!" he also exclaims, "And I 
too am an educator ! " This enthusiasm will be 
more common when educators entertain a more 
exalted conception of their profession. 

That the educator cannot fully realize his con- 
ception, is no argument against his keeping it con- 
stantly in view, to stimulate his zeal and guide his 
practice. The equation of aims and achievements 
must, after all, be an indeterminate one ; but we 
approach nearer and nearer to its solution, by a 
high assumption for the aims. " We strive, " as 
Coleridge says, "to ascend, and we ascend in our 
striving. " 

Nothing has been said of the value of Physiology, 
Psychology, etc. , to the educator merely as a man, 



The Theory or Science of Education. 93 

not as a professional man. But it is easy to see 
that it must be great. Nor have they been pointed 
out as subjects of direct instruction for his pupils ; 
yet surely it is important that he should be able to 
give in his classes elementary lessons on all these 
subjects, particularly on Physiology. The nomen- 
clature, at least, and the rudiments of Psychology 
may be advantageously learned by elder pupils, and 
the elements of Logic should certainly form a part 
of the instruction of students of Euclid and gram- 
matical analysis. 

But beyond the theoretical treatment of the The educator 

, needs education 

Science of Education, I have a practical object in in his art. 
view. I wish to show that there is a strong pre- 
sumption that the educator of our day needs edu- 
cation in his art. Individual teachers may deny 
this for themselves — they generally do — but they 
freely admit it with regard to their rivals in the 
next street, or the next town. Generalize this ad- 
mission, and all we ask for is granted. But there 
is a test of a different kind which disposes of the 
question — the test of results. ' ' By their fruits ye 
shall know them. " If the fruit is good, the tree is 
good. If the large majority of schools are in a 
satisfactory condition, then the educator is doing 
his work well; for "as is the master so is the 
school " — which means, to speak technically, that 
the results of a system of education are not as the 
capabilities of the pupil, nor as the external school 
machinery, but as the professional preparedness of 



94 The Theory or Science of Education. 

the educator. If, then, the large majority of 
schools are unsatisfactory, it is because the teacher 
is unsatisfactory. And that they are so, is proved 
by every test that can be applied. All the Com- 
missions on Education — whether primary, second- 
ary, or advanced — tell the same tale, pronounce 
the same verdict of failure ; and that verdict would 
have been more decided had the judges been them- 
selves educators. Dealing with a subject which 
they know mostly as amateurs, not as experts, they 
are not competent to estimate the results by a 
scientific standard ; they therefore reckon as good 
much that is really bad ; for the value of a result 
in education mainly depends on the manner in 
which it has been gained. Yet even these estima- 
tors severally declare that the educational machin- 
ery of this country is working immensely under 
the theoretical estimate of its power. The ' ' scan- 
dalously small " results of the public-school edu- 
cation are paralleled or exceeded by those of the 
middle-class and primary schools; and in cases 
of primary schools where this epithet would not 
apply, we find that the superiority is due to the pre- 
liminary training of the teacher. 

What, again, is to be said of the evidence fur- 
nished by such a statement as the following, which 
is extracted from the Athenceum of March 27, 
1869: "A petition was last week presented to 
the House of Commons from the Council of Medi- 
cal Education, stating that the maintenance of 9 



The Theory or Science of Education. 95 

sufficient medical education is very difficult, o\v in 
to the defective education given in middle-class 
schools. A similar complaint was made in a pe- 
tition from the British Medical Association, num- 
bering 4000 members. In a third petition, pro- 
ceeding from the University of London, it was 
stated that during the last 10 years 40 per cent [it 
has since been more than 50 per cent] of the can- 
didates at the matriculation examinations have 
failed to satisfy the examiners " ? 

Once more, Sir John Lefevre, describing, in sir John L e - 
1861, the mental condition of the candidates for -* evte says ' 
the Civil Service who came before him for examina- 
tion, refers to "the incredible failures in ortho- 
graphy, the miserable writing, the ignorance of 
arithmetic." "It is comparatively rare," he says, 
"to find a candidate who can add correctly a 
moderately long column of figures." Some im- 
provement has taken place, no doubt, during the 
last ten years under the influence of the examina- 
tions of the College of Preceptors, and those of 
Oxford and Cambridge, but the main difficulty re- 
mains much the same. 

This, then, is the evidence, or rather a part of 
the evidence, which attests the unsatisfactory results 
of our middle-class teaching. But we repeat, "as 
are the teachers, so are the schools ; " and, there- 
fore, without hesitation make the teachers directly 
responsible for these results. Had they been mas- 
ters of their art, the results would have been im- 



Gull. 



96 The Theory or Science of Education, 

possible; and they are not masters of theii art, 
because they have not studied its principles, nor 
been scientifically trained in its practice. 
Tke remedy The true remedy has been suggested by many 

consists in . ' . 

training the eminent men, not merely by teachers. It consists 
in teaching the teacher how to teach, in training 
the trainer, in educating the educator. 

Words of Dr. Thus; Dr. Gull, after complaining of the insuffi- 
cient education of youths who are to study medi- 
cine, said (Evidence before Schools Enquiry Com- 
mission) that "improvement must begin with the 
teachers. Any one is allowed to teach. There is 
no testing of the teacher. I think he should be 
examined as to his power of teaching and his 
knowledge." "The subjects (for his preparation) 
should include the training of the senses, and the 
intellect, and the teaching of the moral relations 
of man to himself and his neighbor." Mr. Rob- 
son, in his evidence before the same Commission, 
said: "We should require certificates of teachers 
showing that knowledge has been attained, and 
also some knowledge of Mental Philosophy in con- 
nection with the Art of Teaching. Every teacher 
has to act on the human mind, and unless he 
knows the best methods of so acting, it is quite 
impossible he can exercise his powers to the best 
advantage." The evidence of Messrs. Howson, 
Besant, Goldwin Smith, Best, and others, was to 
the same effect. 

The Assistant Commissioners, Messrs. Bryce, 



The Theory or Science of Education. 97 

Fearon, and especially Mr. Fitch, make the same words of Mr. 
complaints of the want of training for the teacher. Fltch ' 
Mr. Fitch — who has every right to be heard on 
such a point, for he thoroughly knows the subject, 
practically as well as theoretically — says in his re- 
port on Yorkshire Endowed and Private Schools: 
"Nothing is more striking than the very general 
disregard on the part of schoolmasters of the Art 
and Science of Teaching. Few have had any 
special preparation in it. Professional training for 
middle-class schoolmasters does not exist in this 
country. It is certain that many of them would 
gladly obtain it, if it were accessible. "But at pres- 
ent it is not to be had." And again: " It is a truth 
very imperfectly recognized by teachers, that the 
education of a youth depends not only on what he 
learns, but on how he learns it, and that some 
power of the mind is being daily improved or in- 
jured by the methods which are adopted in teach- 
ing him." Mr. Fitch, in another place,* also re- 
marks, "We all know instances of men who un- 
derstand a subject thoroughly, and who are yet 
utterly incapable of teaching it. We have all seen 
that waste of power and loss of time continually 
result from the tentative, haphazard, and unskilful 
devices to which teachers of this kind resort. Yet 



* "The Professional Training of Teachers:" a paper 
read at the Bradford Meeting of the Association for 
Promoting Social Science. 
7 



9§ The Theory or Science of Education. 

we seem slow to admit the obvious inference from 
such experience. The art of teaching, like other 
arts, must be systematically acquired. The pro- 
fession of a schoolmaster is one for which no man 
is duly qualified who has not studied it thoroughly, 
both in its principles and in their practical applica- 
tion." 
Words of Mr. The Rev. Evan Daniel, principal of Battersea 
Normal School, aptly describes the two main 
classes of middle-class teachers, ist. University 
men, ' ' not infrequently of distinguished ability and 
scholarship. Few of them, however, have had the 
advantage of professional training. They enter on 
their work with but a slight knowledge of child- 
life; they have never studied the psychological 
principles on which education should be based ; 
they are almost utterly ignorant of the best modes 
of teaching, of organizing, and of maintaining dis- 
cipline. " These are the teachers, rather the would- 
be teachers, who, as a distinguished head-master 
told us some time ago in the Times, are to be al- 
lowed to find out their art by victimizing their 
pupils for two whole years before they become 
worth anything to their profession. But Mr. Daniel 
also refers to the other class of teachers, who, be- 
sides wanting everything that the former class want, 
also want their mental cultivation, and remain "in 
a state of intellectual stagnation, discharging their 
duties in a half-hearted, perfunctory spirit, and find- 
ing them twice as hard and disagreeable as they 



The Theory or Science of Education. 99 

need be, from the want of suitable preparation for 
them." 

The arguments then from theory and those from 
facts meet at this point, and demand with united 
force that the educator shall be educated for his 
profession. But how is this to be brought about? 
What is doing in furtherance of this most important 
object ? The answer to the question must be brief, 
and shows rather tentative efforts than accomplished 
facts. 

1. The training of teachers for primary schools 
is going on satisfactorily in the Normal Colleges of 
the National and British and Foreign School so- 
cieties, so that what is asked for middle-class teach- 
ers is evidently possible. They can be trained into 
better teachers than they are. 

2. This training of middle-class teachers, which 
some decry as quackery and others as useless, is 
actually going on in France and Germany most 
satisfactorily. In both countries, highly cultivated 
and efficient educators, with whom the majority of 
English teachers would have no chance of com- 
peting, are the every-day product of their respective 
systems of training. 

3. Our government, in the Educational Coun- 
I Bill, for the present withdrawn, provided 

••that all teachers of endowed schools should be 
registered, as persons whose qualifications for 
teaching have been ascertained by examinations, 
or by proved efficiency in teaching on evidence 



too The Theory or Science of Education, 

satisfactory to the council ;" and that teachers of 
private schools might also be entered on the regis- 
try, by showing similar qualifications. 

4. The Scholastic Registration Association, hav- 
ing for its object ' ' the discouragement of unqualified 
persons from assuming the office of schoolmaster 
or teacher," has obtained a large share of public 
approval, and numbers among its members many 
head-masters of public schools and colleges, as 
Drs. Hornby, Kennedy, Haig-Brown (president 
of the association), Thring, Collis, Weymouth, 
Schmitz, Rigg, Donaldson, Jones, Mitchinson, 
the Revs. E. A. Abbott and F. W. Farrar, and 
many other distinguished friends of education. 

5. The College of Preceptors, too, by the insti- 
tution of this Lectureship, by the re- constitution 
of its examinations for teachers, and by its recent 
memorial to the government on Training Col- 
leges, is showing itself fully alive to the impor- 
tance of the subject. Its new examinations have 
just taken place, and candidates have for the first 
time been examined on the principles of Physiol- 
ogy, Psychology, Moral Philosophy, and Logic, 
and their application to the art of teaching, as well 
as on their own personal experience as educators. 
The results have shown how deeply needed is this 
knowledge of principles ; out of fifteen candidates 
only three have satisfied the examiners. We still 
hope, however, by placing a high standard before 
the candidates, and requiring an earnest study of 



The Theory or Science of Education. 101 

the subjects of examination, to make our diplomas 
certificates of real qualification, as far as written 
and viva voce examinations can test it. 

Yet the real desideratum, after all, is training 
colleges for middle-class teachers, professorships 
of education at our leading universities, and 
more, perhaps, than all, a nobler conception of 
education itself among English teachers. 



io2 The Theory or Science of Education, 



THE THEORY OR SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 

ANALYSIS. 

PAGE 

Introduction 59 

Derivation of the term Education 60 

Instruction 61 

Influences may hinder as well as help 62 

Education results in civilization 63 

The work of the educator. 64 

The educator must know the child 65 

" Practical " teachers object to theory, calling it 

quackery 66 

They ask for the practical only 66 

Principles for the basis of correct practice 68 

The science of Education is in a rudimentary condi- 
tion 69 

Evils of unscientific teaching 70 

When founded on principles Education becomes a 

profession 72 

Principles may be drawn from practice. 73 

Study the great masters 74 

The teacher must know the pupil 75 

Physical Education 76 

He needs physiological knowledge 76 

Words of Dr. Youmans 78 

Dr. Combe 79 

Rousseau 80 

The body should be trained^. ,.,.,,.,,...,,....,,, 8q 



The theory or Science of Education. 103 

PAGE 

Intellectual Education 81 

Dr. Youmans quoted 81 

The educator should know the mind 82 

Knowing the mental powers he can train them 83 

Training the observing powers 84 

Training to reason 84 

Moral Education 86 

The moral forces 86 

Plan to train them 88 

The educator should know moral philosophy 88 

The teacher should know his business 91 

The educator needs education in his art 93 

Sir John Lefevre's words 95 

The remedy for poor teaching consists in training the 

teacher 96 

Words of Mr. J. G. Fitch 97 

Mr. E. Daniel 98 



CHE PRACTICE OR ART OF 
EDUCATION.* 



introduction. The Theory of Education, as explained in the 
former Lecture, consists in an appreciation of the 
influences which must be brought to bear inten- 
tionally, consciously, and persistently on a child, 
with a view to instruct him in knowledge, develop 
his faculties, and train them to the formation of 
habits. It was shown that this view of Education 
assumes that the educator must himself study and 
comprehend the nature of these influences ■ and 
tnat this theoretical study, aided by the lessons of 
experience, both personal and that of others, con- 
stitutes his own education. Assuming, then, the 
education of the educator himself, which involves 
a due conception of the end in view, we have now 
to consider some of the means by which he has to 
realize it, and this constitutes the Practice or Art 
of Education. 

I have already disclaimed the idea of attempting 
to construct a symmetrical science of education, 
and am not bound therefore to deduce a sym- 

* Delivered at the House of the Society of Arts, on 
14th July, 1871; J. G. Fitch, Esq., in the chair. 



The Practice or Art of Education. 105 

metrical art from a theoretical ideal. Nor is this 
necessary ; for whatever may be said of the Theory, 
there is no doubt that the Art of Education exists, 
and that its fundamental principles can be evolved 
from its practice. 

The Art of Education, strictly considered, in- what the Art 
volves all the means by which the educator brings %. 
his influence to bear on his pupils, and embraces 
therefore organization, discipline, school econo- 
mics, the regulation of studies, etc. Our limited 
space, however, forbids our entering on these 
matters, and the "Art of Education" will in this 
lecture be considered as only another term for 
Teaching or Instruction. 

If we observe the process which we call instruc- The pupa 
tion, we see two parties conjointly engaged — the self. 
learner and the teacher. The object of both is 
the same, but their relations to the work to be 
done are different. Inasmuch as the object can 
only be attained by the mental action of the 
learner, by his observing, remembering, etc., it is 
clear that what he does, not what the teacher does, 
is the essential part of the process. This essential 
part, the appropriation and assimilation of knowl- 
edge by the mind, can be performed by no one 
but the learner ; for the teacher can no more think 
for his pupil than he can walk, sleep, or digest for 
him. It is then on the exercise of the pupil's own 
mind that his acquisition of knowledge entirely 
depends, and this subjective process, performed 



ic6 The Practice or Art of Education. 

entirely by himself, constitutes the pupil's art of 
learning. If, however, every act from which ideas 
from without become incorporated with the pupil's 
mind is an act which can only be performed by 
the pupil himself, it follows that he is in fact his 
own teacher, and we arrive at the general proposi- 
tion that learning is self -teaching. This psycho- 
logical principle is of cardinal importance in the 
art of education. We see at once that it defines 
the function of the teacher, the other party in the 
process of instruction. It appears from what has 
been just said, that the only indispensable part of 
the process — the mental act by which knowledge is 
acquired — is the pupil's, not the teacher's; and, 
indeed, that the teacher cannot, if he would, per- 
The teadur form it for the pupil. On the other hand, the 
^fmhZuk**" experience of mankind shows that the pupil, how- 
ever capable, would not generally undertake his 
part spontaneously, nor, if he did, carry it to a 
successful issue. The indispensable part of the 
process cannot, it is true, be done without the 
mental exertion of the pupil, but it is equally 
true that it will not be done without the action and 
influence of the teacher. The teacher s part then 
in the process of instruction is that of a guide, 
director, or superintendent of the operations by 
which the pupil teaches himself * 

* " To teach boys how to instruct themselves — that, 
after all, is the great end of school- work." — Markby. 
" The object of all education is to teach people to 



J wns, 



The Practice or Art of Education. 107 
As this view of the correlation of learning and The P»i>n <U~ 

ways self- 

teaching assumes the competency of the pupil to taught. 
teach himself, it may of course be theoretically 
disputed. It is important, then, to add that the 
child whom the teacher takes in hand has already 
learned or taught himself a great number of things, 
lie has, in fact, learned the use of his senses, the 
qualities of matter, and the elements of his mother- 
L<>ngue, without the aid of any professed teacher. 
The faculties, however, by the use of which he 
has made these acquisitions are the same that he 
must employ in his further acquisitions, when the 
action and influence of natural circumstances are 
superseded by those of the professed teacher. 

A slight review of the operation of these natural 
circumstances — which we may for convenience' 
sake call Nature — will serve to suggest some of the 
means by which the teacher, as a superintendent of 
the pupil's process of self-instruction, is to exercise 
his proper action and influence. 

How, then, does Nature teach ? She furnishes How nature 

teaches. 

knowledge by object-lessons, and she trains the 
active powers by making them act. She has given 
capability of action, and she develops this capa- 
bility by presenting occasions for its exercise. 
She makes her pupil learn to do by doing, to live 

think for themselves." — "University Extension," an 
address delivered at the request of the Leeds Ladies' 
Educational Association, by James Stuart, Fellow and 
Assistant Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge. 



io8 The Practice or Art of Education, 

by living. She gives him no grammar of seeing, 
hearing, etc.; she gives no compendiums of ab- 
stract principles. She would stop his progress at 
the very threshold, if she did. Action ! action ! is 
her maxim of training ; and things ! things ! are 
the objects of her lessons. She adopts much repe- 
tition in her teaching, in order that the difficult 
may become easy, "use become a second nature." 
In physical training, ' ' Use legs and have legs, " is 
one of her maxims, and she acts analogously in 
regard to mental and moral training. She teaches 
quietly. She does not continually interrupt her 
pupil, even when he blunders, by outcries and ob- 
jurgations. She bides her time, and by prompt- 
ing him to continued action, and inducing him to 
think about what he is doing, and correct his 
errors himself, makes his very blunders fruitful in 
instruction. She does not anxiously intervene to 
prevent the consequence of his actions ; she allows 
him to experience them, that he may learn pru- 
dence ; sometimes even letting him burn his fin- 
gers, that he may gain at once a significant lesson in 
physics, and also the moral lesson involved in the 
ministry of pain. 

These are some of the features of Nature's Art 
of Education, and they are all consistent with the 
assumption that throughout her course of instruc- 
tion the pupil is teaching himself. 
Nature does We m fe r > then, from these considerations, that 

not explain, fas child whose instruction is to be secured by the 



The Practice or Art of Education. 109 

guidance of the teacher has already shown his ca- 
pacity to learn, and to learn, moreover, without ex- 
planations. We remark, further, that an accurate 
analysis of this process of self-tuition, based on 
the combined observations and experiments of 
teachers carefully noted and compared together, 
and generalized into principles of education, will 
no doubt, in time to come, furnish the true canons 
of the art of teaching, or, in other words, that the 
pupil's subjective process of learning, when thor- 
oughly understood, will suggest, with proper limi- 
tations, the teacher's counterpart objective process 
of teaching. 

The principle I am contending for — that the 
child is capable of teaching himself without ex- 
planations — is indeed very generally acknowledged 
in word by teachers, who also very generally re- 
pudiate it in fact. They allow that it is not what 
they do for their pupil, but what he does for him- 
self, that gives him strength and independent 
force : but the multitude of directions, precepts, 
warnings, exhortations, and explanations, with 
which they bewilder and enfeeble him, neutralizes 
their theoretical acknowledgment of the principle. 
Let such teachers say what they will, they virtually 
deny the pupil's native capacity ; they act on the 
belief that he cannot learn without explanations, 
and especially without their explanations. 

This question of the necessity of explanations is should there he 
a vital point in our argument, and needs further ex P latiati0n ^ 



no The Practice or Art of Education. 

discussion. Explaining is "flattening, "or ''mak- 
ing level," " clearing the ground " so as to produce 
an even surface ; and when applied to teaching, 
as generally understood, means removing obstruc- 
tions out of the way, so as to make the subject 
clear to the pupil, and generally to do this by ver- 
bal discourse. 

But (i) we notice that Nature, who makes her 
pupil teach himself, gives no explanations of this 
kind. She does not explain the difference be- 
tween hard and soft objects — she says, Feel them ; 
between this and that fact — she says, Place them 
side by side, and mark the difference yourself; 
and generally she says to her pupil, Don't ask me 
to tell you anything that you can find out for 
yourself. 

(2) The question of explanations essentially in- 
volves those of the order of studies and the method 
of teaching. If the subject is unsuited to the 
pupil's stage of instruction, or if, instead of pre- 
senting him with facts which he can understand, 
we force upon him abstractions which he cannot, 
we create the need for explanations ; and in this 
case it is not merely probable, but certain, that 
most of them, however elaborate, will be thrown 
away. _ We are, in fact, calling on the immature 
faculties for an effort which is beyond the strength 
of the trained intellect ; for the man has never 
lived who can understand an abstract general 
proposition while utterly ignorant of the facts on 



The Practice or Art of Education, hi 

which it is ultimately founded. But supposing 
that we admit the value of explanations generally, 
and that the explanations given are admirably clear 
in themselves, their value to the individual pupil 
will depend, not on their absolute excellence, but 
on their relation to the condition of his mind. 
Unless, then, the teacher has well studied that 
mind, so as to know its individual history, its ac- 
tual condition, and its needs, much of his explana- 
tion will "waste its sweetness on the desert air." 
That portion only will be received and assimilated 
for which the previous instruction has prepared 
the mind, and all the rest will flow away and leave 
no impression whatever behind it. And, in gen- 
eral, it may be laid down as a practical principle 
of teaching, that long, elaborate explanations are 
entirely out -of place in a class of children. They 
do not generally quicken, but rather quell, atten- 
tion. The children, indeed, consider that, though 
it may be the teacher's duty to preach, it is no nec- 
essary part of theirs to heed the preaching. This 
work, as they generally take it, is the proper oc- 
casion for their play ; and this play, without out- 
ward manifestation, may be going on uproariously 
in that inner playground where the teacher cannot 
set his foot. Rousseau, in his interesting if some- 
what romantic "Emile," gives the following 
opinion on this subject — I adopt Mr. Quick's 
translation : "I do not at all admire explanatory 
discourses ; young people give little attention to 



ii2 The Practice or Art of Education. 

them, and never retain them. Things ! things ! I 
can never enough repeat it, that we make words of 
too much consequence. With our prating modes 
of education, we make nothing but praters. " 
Yet Nature is Now in these cases the teacher fails because he 
piititiy follow- does not follow Nature. The pupils for whom he 
"clears the ground" would have cleared it them- 
selves if he had known how to direct them, and 
would have been the stronger for the exercise. 
Having thus indicated Nature's art of teaching, 
as, in a general way, the archetype of the educator's, 
it is important now to say that it is not to be im- 
plicitly followed. 

(i) Nature s teaching is desultory. She mingles 
lessons in physics, language, morality, all together. 
Her main business seems to be the training of 
faculty, and she subordinates to this the orderly 
acquisition of knowledge by her pupils. We are 
to imitate Nature in training faculty, but with a 
definite aim as regards subjects. 

(2) Natures teaching is often inaccurate ; not, 
however, from any defect in her method, but from 
inherited defects in her pupils. If she has not 
originally given a sound brain, she does not gen- 
erally herself improve upon her handiwork. The 
impressions received by a feeble brain become 
blurred, imperfect conceptions, and Nature often 
leaves them so. It is the educator's business, 
however, to endeavor to improve upon her labors, 



The Practice or Art of Education. 113 

to ascertain the original fault, and by apt exercises 
to amend it. 

(3) Natures teaching often appears to be over- 
done. She gives ten thousand exercises to develop 
faculty, but she continues to give them when that 
purpose is answered. The educator is to imitate 
her in very frequently repeating his lessons, but to 
cease when the object is gained. 

(4) Nature does not secure the results of her 
lessons with a direct aim to mental and moral im- 
provement. She exercises various powers to a cer- 
tain extent and with certain objects : but she does 
not prompt to their improvement beyond this 
point, nor exercise them equally upon objects un- 
connected with animal wants and instincts. We 
are to imitate Nature in gaining such results for 
our pupils as she gains, but we are to go beyond 
her in securing these results as a means to the at- 
tainment of a higher platform of knowledge and 
power. 

(5) Nature accustoms her pupils to Utile, and 
that the simplest, generalization. For any care that 
she takes, the materials suitable for this process 
may remain unquickened throughout the whole of 
a man's life. The educator is to imitate Nature in 
prompting his pupils to generalize on facts, but to 
surpass her in carrying them forward in practice. 

(6) Nature is relentless i?i her discipline. She 
takes no acquit of extenuating circumstances. 



ii4 The Practice or Art of Education. 

To disobey is to die. She not only punishes the 
offender for his own offence, but often makes him 
surfer for the offences of others. She involves him 
in all these consequences of his actions, and often 
gives him no opportunity for repentance. The 
educator, on the other hand, while allowing his 
pupil to be visited by the consequences of his 
actions, is to prevent ruinous consequences — to 
give him room for repentance, to love the offender 
while punishing the offence, and to allow for ex- 
tenuating circumstances. 

Nature's teaching, then, while in general the 
model of the educator's, requires adaptation, ex- 
tension, and correction, in order to make the best 
use of it. The old adage, "Art improves Nature," 
applies undoubtedly to the art of education, a 
truth which means Pestalozzi — certainly himself a 
choice specimen of Nature's teaching, a head boy 
in her school — failed, as we shall see, to ap- 
preciate. 
The educator The upshot of what has been said hitherto is 
NaliriTmeth- tnis > tnat tne natural process by which the mind 
od ' acquires knowledge and power is a process of self- 

education, — that the educator should recognize 
that process as a guide to his practice, suggesting 
both what he should aim at and what he should 
avoid. To this it is very important to add, that 
his success in carrying out his object will greatly 
depend upon his being furnished with the re- 
sources of his science. A thousand unforeseen 



The Practice or Art of Education. 115 

difficulties, arising from the individual personal 
characteristics of his pupils, will occur in the prog- 
ress of his work, and demand the exercise of his 
utmost skill and moral courage for their treatment. 
It is here, quite as much in the normal action of the 
machinery that he is. directing, that the value of 
his own education as an educator will be found. 
It is the "unusual circumstances" referred to by 
Mr. Grove, that call for that "plasticity" — that 
multiform power of applying principles, which 
distinguishes the scientifically trained from the 
routine teacher. 

I will now illustrate my subject by presenting 
two typical specimens of the Art of Teaching. In 
the first the teacher fully recognizes the compe- 
tency of his pupils to learn or teach themselves 
without any explanations whatever from him, and 
accordingly he gives them none ; at the same 
time, however, he earnestly employs himself in 
directing the forces under his command, and sees 
in the self-instruction of his pupils the result of 
his action and influence. In the second instance 
the teacher acts on the presumption that the 
pupil's success depends rather on what is done for 
him than on what he does for himself. 

Suppose that the object be to give a lesson on a illustration 0/ 
simple machine — say the pile-driving machine — in %, the fujiis. 
its least elaborate form. I scarcely need say that 
it consists of two strong uprights, well fastened 
into a solid, broad block of wood, as a basis, and 



n6 The Practice or Art of Education. 

supplied with two thick ropes, one on each side, 
which are laid over pulleys at the top of the up- 
rights, and employed to draw up a heavy mass of 
iron, the fall of which on the head of the pile 
drives it into the earth. Two or three men at 
each rope supply the motive power. 

Let a large working model of the machine be 
so placed that all the pupils of the class may see 
and have access to it. The teacher's object is to 
make this machine the means of communicating 
knowledge and of drawing forth their intellectual 
powers. He has no need to tell them to look at 
it. The image of it, as a whole, is at once im- 
pressed upon their minds. The teacher need not 
tax his ingenuity to devise methods for gaining 
their attention. Their attention is already on the 
full stretch. Their curiosity is largely excited — 
their eyes wide open, "unsatisfied with seeing." 
— " What can it be ? What will it do ?" He tells 
them the purpose of it, and nothing more : "It 
is a contrivance for driving piles into the ground. " 
They are eager to see it in action. 

It is now at rest, the weight resting on the head 
of the pile. The teacher directs two of the chil- 
dren, one on each side, to lay hold of the ropes 
and pull up the weight, telling the class that the 
weight is called a monkey — a fact which they will 
certainly remember. [Names and conventionali- 
ties which they cannot find out for themselves, he 
must, of course, tell them ; but telling of this 



The Practice or Art of Education. 117 

kind is not explanation.] Well, the monkey is 
drawn up gradually, until the clutch relaxes its 
hold, and down it falls, to their immense delight. 
This is the first experiment. Let all the children 
try it — all pull up the weight with their own 
hands, and gain an idea, by personal, individual 
experience, of the resistance of the weight. This 
experience involves muscular sensibility, sensa- 
tion, and a rudimentary notion of force. The 
children by this time have an idea of the ma- 
chine, and begin to conceive the relation between 
the end and the means — between- the problem to 
be solved and the means of solving it. The pile 
evidently gives way under the repeated blows of 
the monkey. Let the monkey be weighed, and 
another substituted heavier or lighter. What is 
the result now ? Use the measuring scale to see 
exactly how much the pile moves under the differ- 
ent weights. Why are the results different? 
[These mechanical acts of weighing and measur- 
ing exactly are not to be despised ; they are 
fraught with practical instruction. ] Next, let the 
height from which the weight falls be gradually 
varied, until there is no height, and the weight 
merely rests on the head of the pile, as at first. 
What is gained by the motion of the weight ? 
Try the experiment many times — weigh, measure, 
judge. When is weight acting alone? — when 
along with motion? The children form a con- 
ception for themselves of momentum ; and when 



1 1 8 The Practice or Art of Education. 

the thing is understood the technical name may 
be given. Next, let the weight be detached and 
placed on an inclined plane — a slanting board. 
Why does it move now less easily than it did when 
it was free ? Alter the inclination ; try all the 
possible varieties of slope. When is the motion 
easiest? The pupils gain the idea of friction, and 
may have the name given them. Let the clutch 
be examined. How does it act? Why hold the 
weight so firmly at one moment, and let it go the 
next ? Try the experiment, handle it, attach it to 
the weight ? Does it hold the weight firmly ? 
Why does it let the weight go at the right mo- 
ment ? Again, suppose the weight were made of 
wood, lead, putty, etc., instead of iron. Try 
these substances for the weight. Why are they 
less suitable for the purpose than iron ? 

Attach weights to the ropes, and see whether 
they may be so contrived as to supersede the 
manual labor. What are the difficulties in doing 
this ? Can they be overcome ? What is the use 
of the pulleys? Remove them, and pull at the 
ropes without them. What difference is there 
now in the ease of motion ? 

Could any one devise another machine for 
driving piles, or any other contrivance for doing 
the work of this better ? Let every one think of 
this before the next lesson, and bring his model 
with him. The teacher sums up the results of 
the lesson, and tells the pupils to write them down 



The Practice or Art of Education. 119 

Defore him. He examines their papers, and 
makes them correct the blunders themselves. 
The lesson is concluded. 

Now in this lesson we have a typical specimen The teacher to 
of the self-teaching of the pupils under the super- 
intendence of the teacher. If teaching means, as 
stated in books on the subject, the communica- 
tion of knowledge by the explanations of the 
teacher, he has taught them nothing. Of that 
kind of teaching which Mr. Wilson of Rugby 
calls "the most stupid and most didactic" — mean- 
ing that the most didactic is the most stupid — we 
have here not a trace. The teacher has recognized 
his true function as simply a director of the mental 
machinery which is, in fact, to do all the work 
itself; for it is not he, but his pupils, that have to 
learn, and to learn by the exercise of their own 
minds. He has constituted himself, therefore, as 
(if the expression may be pardoned) a sort of out^ 
side will and mind, to act on and co-operate with 
the wills and minds of his pupils. He is the 
primum mobile which sets the machinery in motion, 
and maintains and regulates the motion ; but the 
work that it does, the results that it gains, are not 
his work nor his results, but the machinery's. In 
the case of the human machinery — the children's 
minds, which are not dead matter, but living 
organisms — he has had to supply motives to 
action, sympathy, and encouragement — to apply, 
indeed, all the resources of his science. But still 



i2o The Practice or Art of Education. 

he is simply the superintendent or director of the 
operations which constitute the learning or self- 
teaching of the pupils ; and the intrusion of those 
explanations, which some consider the essence of 
teaching, would have hindered and frustrated the 
efficiency of those operations. For, in the case 
before us, why should he explain, and what has he 
to explain? The machine is its own interpreter. 
It answers those who interrogate it in the em- 
phatic and eloquent language of facts — a language 
which the children understand without explana- 
tions ; and it practises them abundantly in what 
Professor Huxley aptly calls the ' ' logic of experi- 
ment"; and if it says nothing about abstractions 
and first principles, which they could not compre- 
hend, it lays before them the proper groundwork 
for these mental deductions, ready for the super- 
structure of science when the proper time comes. 
And, until this groundwork of facts is laid, the 
teacher may strain his mind and break his heart 
in his anxiety to give explanations. In fact, none 
that he can give will be equal in value to those 
given silently, powerfully, and effectually by the 
machine itself. It is clear, then, that nothing 
would be gained by his explanations, and that 
they are therefore unnecessary. 
Points of inter- Without dwelling now on all the points of in- 
terest contained in the lesson that I have described, 
which will be summarized hereafter, I invite at- 
tention especially to two or three, 



est in this les- 
son 



The Practice or Art of Education. 121 

(1) We notice the pleasurable feeling of the 
children thus actively engaged in the free exercise 
of their own powers — seeing, handling, experi- 
menting, discovering, investigating, and inventing 
for themselves. This feeling will, by the neces- 
sary laws of association, always accompany the 
remembrance of the lesson. Is not this in itself 
an immense gain both for teacher and pupils ? 

But (2) there is another very important gain for 
the pupils thus educating themselves. It is an 
approved principle of the science of education that 
it should be the aim of the educator not merely 
to train faculty, but to induce in his pupils the 
power of exercising it without his aid — in other 
words, to make the pupils independent of the 
teacher. Now as, in the case before us, the chil- 
dren have gained their knowledge by the exercise 
of their own faculties — have observed, experi- 
mented, etc., for themselves, they cannot but have 
gained a rudimentary consciousness that they 
could, without the teacher, go through the same 
process in acquiring the knowledge of another 
machine. This consciousness of power may, as 
I have said, be, at the end of the first lesson, 
merely rudimentary ; but it will gain strength as 
they proceed, and the final result of such teaching 
will be that they will acquire the valuable habit of 
independent mental self-direction. An eminent 
French teacher used to be laughed at for saving 
that he was continually aiming to make himself 



122 The Practice or Art of Education. 

tiseless to his pupils. The silly laughers thought 
that he had made a blunder, and meant to say — 
useful. But they were the blunderers. 

(3) It is a noticeable point in the process de- 
scribed that it led the children to discover, inves- 
tigate, and invent on their own account. They 
were continually conscious of the pleasure of find- 
ing things out for themselves. They were con- 
tinually making advances, however feeble, in the 
very path that the first discoverers of knowledge of 
the same kind, and indeed of every kind, had 
trod before them. Though only little children, 
they were unconsciously adopting the method of 
the scientific investigator, and becoming trained, 
though as yet but very imperfectly, in his spirit. 
Should they subsequently give themselves up to 
scientific inquiry, they will not change their 
method, for it is even now essentially that of 
scientific investigation. The value of this plan of 
learning is aptly pointed out in a well-known pas- 
sage from Burke's essay on "The Sublime and 
Beautiful." "I am convinced/' he says, "that 
the method of teaching [or learning] which ap- 
proaches most nearly to the method of investiga- 
tion is incomparably the best ; since, not content 
with serving up a few barren and lifeless truths 
[such as abstractions, general propositions, for- 
mulae, etc.], it leads to the stock on which they 
grew ; it tends to set the reader [or learner] him- 
self on the track of invention, and to direct him 



The Practice or Art of Education. i2$ 

into those paths in which the author [or scientific 
investigator] has made his own discoveries." It 
is obvious that our children, engaged in investi- 
gating and discovering for themselves, were pre- 
cisely in the position, with regard to their subject, 
which is described in these words. 

But their native inventive faculty was also exer- 
cised. They would be sure, before the next 
lesson, to take the hint given them by the teacher, 
and would be ready with various contrivances for 
modifying the pile-driving machine. When I say 
this I speak from experience, not conjecture. I 
have myself, when engaged in reading a simple 
narrative with a class of children, and meeting 
with a reference to some gate to be burst open by 
mechanical means, or some bridge to be extem- 
porized in a difficult emergency, simply said, 
"Try to invent a contrivance for accomplishing 
these objects, and show me to-morrow your no- 
tions by a drawing and description," and have 
never failed to receive a number of rude sketches 
of schemes more or less suited to the purpose, but 
all showing the intense interest excited by the 
devotion of their minds to the object. I am per- 
suaded that teachers generally overlook half the 
powers latent in the minds of their pupils ; they do 
not credit children with the possession of them, 
and therefore fail to call them out. An instruc- Exampis from 
tive instance of a different mode of proceeding is yn a ' 

furnished by the experience of Professor Tyndall, 



i24 The Practice or Art of Education. 

when he was a teacher in Queenwood School. 
The quotation is rather long, but it is too valuable 
to be omitted. ''One of the duties," he says, in 
his Lecture at the Royal Institution, On the Study 
of Physics as a branch of Education, " was the in- 
struction of a class in mathematics, and I usually 
found that Euclid, and the ancient geometry gen- 
erally, when addressed to the understanding, 
formed a very attractive study for youth. But 
[mark the but!] it was my habitual practice to 
withdraw the boys from the routine of the book, 
and to appeal to their self-power in the treatment 
of questions not comprehended in that routine. 
At first, the change from the beaten track usually 
excited a little aversion ; the youth felt like a child 
among strangers ; but in no single instance have I 
found this aversion to continue. When utterly 
disheartened, I have encouraged the boy by that 
anecdote of Newton, where he attributes the 
difference between him and other men mainly to 
his own patience ; or of Mirabeau, when he 
ordered his servant, who had stated something to 
be impossible, never to use that stupid word again. 
Thus cheered, he has returned to his task with a 
smile, which perhaps had something of doubt in 
it, but which nevertheless evinced a resolution to 
try again. I have seen the boy's eye brighten, and 
at length, with a pleasure of which the ecstasy of 
Archimedes was but a simple expansion, heard him 
exclaim, ' I have it, sir S ■ The consciousness of 



The Practice or Art of Education. 125 

self-power thub awakened was of immense value ; 
and, animated by it, the progress of the class was 
truly astonishing. It was often my custom to give 
the boys their choice of pursuing their proposi- 
tions in the book, or of trying their strength at 
others not found there. Never in a single in- 
stance have I known the book to be chosen. I 
was ever ready to assist when I deemed help need- 
ful, but my offers of assistance were habitually 
declined. The boys had tasted the sweets of in- 
tellectual conquest, and demanded victories of 
their own. I have seen their diagrams scratched 
on the walls, cut into the beams of the playground, 
and numberless other illustrations of the living 
interest they took in the subject. . . . The ex- 
periment was successful, and some of the most 
delightful hours of my existence have been spent 
in marking the vigorous and cheerful expansion of 
mental power when appealed to in the manner I 
have described." This is indeed a striking illus- 
tration of the true art of teaching, as consisting in 
the mental and moral direction of the pupils' self- 
education ; and the result, every one can see, was 
the acquisition of something far more valuable 
than the knowledge of geometry. They gained, 
as an acquisition for life, a knowledge of them- 
selves, a consciousness of both mental and moral 
power, which all the didactic teaching in the 
world could never have given them. All teachers 



126 The Practice or Art of Education. 

should learn, and practise, the lesson conveyed by 
such an example of teaching as this. 
Thhigs to be Now, taking the former instance as a typical 
*essim. tn thlS specimen of the art of teaching, let us consider 
what is involved in it, and gather from it a confir- 
mation of the views already given of the relation 
of the educator to his pupils, of the Science of 
Education to the Art. 

We see (i) that the pupil, teaching himself un- 
der the direction of the educator, begins with 
tangible and concrete facts which he can compre- 
hend, not with abstract principles which he can- 
not. He sees, handles, experiments upon the 
machine ; observes what it is, what it does, draws 
his own conclusions ; and thus healthfully exer- 
cises his senses, his powers of observation, his 
judgment ; and prepares himself for understand- 
ing, at the proper time, general propositions 
founded on the knowledge that he has acquired. 

(2) That, in teaching himself — in gaining his 
knowledge — he employs a method, the analytical, 
which lies in his own power, not the synthetical, 
which would require the teacher's explanations; 
yet that he employs also the synthetical, when 
called on to exercise his combining and construc- 
tive faculty. He employs the analytical method 
in resolving the machine into its parts, its actions 
into their several constituents and means, and the 
synthetical when he uses the knowledge thus 
gained for interpreting other parts and other ac- 



The Practice or Art of Education. 127 

tions of the machine, and when he applies this 
knowledge to the invention of other contrivances 
not actually contemplated by the machine-maker. 

(3) That, in being made a discoverer and ex- 
plorer on his own account, and not merely a pas- 
sive recipient of the results of other people's dis- 
coveries, he not only gains mental power, but 
finds a pleasure in the discoveries made by him- 
self, which he could not find in those made by 
others. 

(4) That in teaching himself, instead of being 
taught by the explanations of the teacher, he pro- 
ceeds, and can only proceed, in exact proportion 
to his strength, gaining increased knowledge just 
at the time that he wants it — at the very moment 
when the increment will naturally become, to use 
a happy expression of Mr. Fitch, "incorporated 
with the organic life of his mind." It is needless 
to add, that he advances, in this self-teaching, from 
the known to the unknown, for the process he 
employs leaves no other course open to him. 

(5) That, in teaching himself in this way, he 
learns to reason both on the relation of facts and 
the relation of ideas to each other : and that thus 
the "logic of experiment" leads him to the logic 
of thought. 

(6) That, in this process of self-teaching, he 
acquires a fund of knowledge and of mental con- 
ceptions, which, by the natural association of 
ideas, forms the groundwork or nucleus to which 



128 The Practice or Art of Education. 

other knowledge and other conceptions of the 
same kind will subsequently attach themselves ; 
the machine which he knows, becoming a sort of 
alphabet of mechanics, by means of which he will 
be able to read and understand, in some degree, 
other machines. 

(7) That the knowledge, thus gained by the 
action of his own mind, will be clear and accu- 
rate, as far as it goes, because it has been gained 
by his own powers. He may, indeed have to 
modify his first notions, to acknowledge to him- 

" self that his observations were imperfect, his con- 
clusions hasty ; but if not interfered with by un- 
seasonable meddling from without, his mind will 
correct its own aberrations, and be much the 
stronger for being required to do this itself. (You 
will remember Professor Tyndall's experience in 
teaching geometry. ) 

(8) That, by teaching himself in this special 

case, he is on the way to acquire the power of 

teaching himself generally, to gain the habit of 

mental self-direction, of self-power, the very end 

and consummation of the educator's art. 

illustration of In order to illustrate my point still more clearly, 
bad teaching. hy force of contrast ^ \ w [\\ give a sketch of another 

mode of teaching, very commonly known in 

schools, taking the same subject for the lesson as 

before. 

First mistake— The teacher, whose operations we are now to 

b ^7raTifaTiln. observe, has a notion — a very common one — that 



The Practice or Art of Education. 129 

as rules and general principles are compendious 
expressions representing many facts, he can econ- 
omize time and labor by commencing with them. 
They are so pregnant and comprehensive, he 
thinks, that if (your z/*is a great peace-maker) he 
can but get his pupils to digest them, they will 
have gained much knowledge in a short time. 
This remarkable educational fallacy I have already 
referred to. Our teacher, however (not knowing second mistake 
the science of education, which refutes it), assumes Tcfe^/fom a 
its truth, takes up a book (a great mistake to begin booh ' 
with, to teach science from a book !), and, in order 
to be quite in form (scientific form being the very 
opposite to this), reads out from it a definition of 
a machine: "A machine is an artificial work 
which serves to apply or regulate moving power ;" 
or another to the same effect : "A machine is an 
instrument formed by two or three of the me- 
chanical powers, in order to augment or regulate 
force or motion. " Now the men who wrote these Third mistake 
definitions were scientific men, already acquainted ^ /suited ns /or 
with the whole subject and they summed up students - 
in these few words the net result of their obser- 
vation of a great number of machines, so as 
logically to differentiate a machine from everything 
else. Their definitions were intended for the ma- 
ture minds of students of science, and were there- 
fore framed in a scientific manner. The logical 
arrangement is, however, the very opposite to that 
in which the science was historically developed, 
9 



130 The Practice or Art of Education. 

and which is the only one possible for the child 
who teaches himself. Our teacher, uninformed in 
the science of education which disposes of this and 
so many other questions belonging to the art, im- 
plicitly follows the good old way, and reads out, as 
Fourth mistake \ have said, the. definition of a machine. The 

— their interest 

is lost. pupils, who are quite disposed to learn whatever 

really interests them, listen attentively, but not 
knowing anything about "moving power''' or 
' ' force, " nor what is meant by augmenting or 
regulating it, nor what "mechanical powers" are, 
at once perceive that this is a matter which does 
not concern them, and very sensibly turn their 
minds in another direction. The vivid curiosity 
and sympathy manifested in the other instance are 
wanting here. These pupils have no curiosity 
about the entirely unknown, and no sympathy with 
the teacher who presents them with the entirely un- 
intelligible. The teacher perceives this, and en- 
deavors to "clear the ground," evidently filled with 
stumbling-blocks and brambles, by an explana- 
tion: "A machine," he says (no machine being 
in sight), "is an artificial work, that is, a work 
made by art. " (Boy, really anxious to learn some- 
thing if he can, thinks, "What is art?" He has 
heard, perhaps, of the art of painting, but what 
has a machine to do with painting ?) The teacher 
proceeds: "A machine, you see [the children see 
nothing], is an artificial work (that is, a work made 
by art), which serves to apply, augment (that is, 



The Practice or Art of Education. 131 

add to), and regulate (that is, direct) moving force 
or power — you know what that is, of course [the 
teacher instinctively avoids explaining the mechani- 
cal /b/T£ of a mere idea] — by combining or put- 
ting together two or more of the mechanical pow- 
ers — that is, levers, pulleys, etc. — I need not ex- 
plain these common words, everybody knows what 
they mean ; so now you see what a machine is. 
What is a machine?" A B answers, "A ma- 
chine is a moving power. " CD,' ' It is some- 
thing which adds force." "Adds force to what ?" 
C D still, "to pulleys and levers." "How 
stupid you all are !" groans out the teacher, "there 
is no teaching you anything !" At that moment, 
E F, a practical boy, gets a glimmering of the 
truth, and says, " A steam-engine is a machine." 
This is an effort of the boy to dash through the 
entanglement of the words, and make his way up to 
the facts. The teacher, however, at once throws 
him back again into the meshes, by saying, ' ' Well, 
then, apply the definition." Boy replies, " I 
don't understand the definition." " Not under- 
stand the definition! Why, I have explained every 
word of it;" and soon. He reads the definition 
again, questions his pupils again upon it, with 
the same result. He perceives that he has failed 
altogether in his object. All his explanations, Fifth mistake 
which have been nothing more than explanations, words and 'not 
of words, not of things (a very common error in tngs ' 
teaching), have failed to "clear the ground," 



132 The Practice or Art of Education. 

which remains as full of stumbling-blocks and 
brambles as ever. 

A bright thought strikes him. He introduces a 
picture of a machine — say of the pile-driving ma- 
chine — (not the machine itself), and a consider- 
able enlightenment of the darkness at once takes 
place. There is now something visible, if not 
tangible. Curiosity and sympathy are awakened, 
and some of the ends of teaching are secured, and 
more would be secured but that the teacher still 
confines himself to reading from his book a de- 
scription of the machine, though he occasionally 
interpolates explanations of the technical words 
that occur. But the picture is, after all, a dead 
thing ; all its parts are in repose or equilibrium ; 
and the pupils, after giving their best attention to 
it, see in it scarcely any illustration of the terms of 
the definition through which they have labored 
so painfully. The pictured machine represents 
"moving power" by not moving at all, and 
"force" by doing nothing, while it leaves the 
"mechanical powers" an entirely unsolved mys- 
Sixth mistake tery. They depart from the lesson with a number 
% h sZ ideas C °. n ~ of confused notions of "moving power," " aug- 
mentation of force," "mechanical powers," "pile- 
driving," " monkeys, " and "clutches," while the 
mental discipline they have acquired is an absolute 
nullity. Their minds have indeed never once been 
brought into direct vital contact with the matter 
they were to learn. The thing itself, the machine, 



The Practice or Art of Education. 133 

has been withheld from them; nothing but a rep- 
resentation, possibly a misrepresentation, of it, has 
been seen, at a distance, in a state of dead repose. 
Instead, therefore, of observing themselves its ac- 
tion, they have been told what somebody else has 
observed ; instead of trying experiments upon it 
with their own hands, they have been treated with a 
description of somebody else's experiments ; instead 
of being required to form a judgment of their own 
on the relation of cause and effect, as seen in the 
action and reaction of forces, they have been made 
acquainted with the judgments of others, and the 
general result of the whole lesson probably is, that 
while they have been, no doubt, deeply impressed 
with the learning and science of their teacher (and 
especially of his book), they have left the class still 
more deeply impressed with the determination that, 
if this is science, they will have as little as possible 
to do with it.* 

Now the teacher, in this case, may be credited Remarks. 
with earnestness, zeal, industry, knowledge of his 
subject (though he had better have thrown away 
his book), with all the knowledge, in short, that 
goes to the making of a teacher, except (but the 



* "There is no use, educationally, in telling you 
simply the results to which I have come. But the true 
method of education is to show you a road, by pursuing 
which you cannot help arriving at these results for your- 
selves." — " University Extension'' ubi sufrct,^ 



i34 The Practice or Art of Education. 



Lessons on 
things should 
be given to 
children. 



exception is rather important) a knowledge of the 
art of teaching. 

These specimens of the art of teaching strik- 
ingly illustrate the principles before insisted on. 
It has been maintained that there is an inherent 
capacity in the child who has taught himself to 
speak and walk, to teach himself other things, 
provided that they are things of the same kind 
as he has learned already. Now all children, 
not being born idiots, are capable of taking part 
in such a lesson as I have described — can em- 
ploy their senses upon the concrete matter of the 
machine, observe its phenomena, make experi- 
ments themselves with it, and gain more or less 
knowledge by this active employment of their 
minds upon it. And the same would be true of 
lessons on other concrete matter — on flowers, 
stones, animals, etc. In fact, these children have 
been taught all their lives by contact with concrete 
matter in some shape or other, and the teacher 
who understands his science will see that there is 
no other possible path to the abstract. It is ob- 
vious, then, that rudimentary lessons on the prop- 
erties of matter, in continuation of those already 
received from natural circumstances, should con- 
stitute the earliest instruction of a child ; and our 
typical lesson conclusively shows that such instruc- 
tion is attainable, and most valuable, not only for 
its own sake, but with a view to mental develop- 
ment, 



The Practice or Art of Education. 135 
It is also shown that when the subject of instruc- The pupil is to 

m. . 11 ,, ., j teach himself 

tion is judiciously chosen, the pupil needs no ver- under the guid- 
bal explanations. The lesson in question is a Teacher. 
specimen of teaching in which, in accordance with 
the theory with which we set out, all the work on 
which the mental acquisition depends is absolutely 
and solely done by the pupil, while the teachers ac- 
tion and influence, which originate and maintain 
the pupil's work, is confined to guidance and super- 
intendence. 

Many arguments might be adduced to show that Henc 7 e the 

J ° ° teacher must 

the principle, that the main business of the teacher get the pupa to 

r r J teach himself. 

is to get the pupil to teach himself, lies at the basis 

of the entire art of Instruction. The teacher who, This is the 

. rn practice of all 

by whatever means, secures this object, is an em- good teachers. 
cient artist ; he who fails in this point fails alto- 
gether ; and the various grades of efficiency are 
denned by the degree of approximation to this 
standard.* 

* "All the best cultivation of a child's mind," says 
Dr. Temple, " is obtained by the child's own exertions, 
and the master's success may be measured by the degree 
in which he can bring his scholars to make such exer- 
tions absolutely without aid." 

"... That divine and beautiful thing called teach- 
ing; that excellent power whereby we are enabled to 
help people to think for themselves; encouraging them 
to endeavors, by dexterously guiding those endeavors 
to success; turning them from their error just when, and 
no sooner than, their error has thrown a luminousness 
upon that which caused it; carefully leading them into 



136 The Practice or Art of Education. 

The principle itself is recognized unconsciousl 
in the practice of all the best teachers. Such 
teachers, while earnestly intent on the process by 
which their pupils are instructing themselves, gen- 
erally say little during the lesson, and that little is 
usually confined to direction. Arnold scarcely 
ever gave an explanation ; and if he did, it was 
given as a sort of reward for some special effort of 
his pupils ; and his son, Mr. Matthew Arnold, tells 
us that such is the practice of the most eminent 
teachers of Germany. 

If further authority for the theoretical argument 
be needed, it may be found in the words of Rous- 
seau, who, recommending "self-teaching" (his 
own word), says: "Obliged to learn by himself, 
the pupil makes use of his own reason, and not 
that of others. From the continual exercise of the 
pupil's own understanding will result a vigor of 
mind, like that which we give the body by labor 
and fatigue. Another advantage is, that we ad- 
vance only in proportion to our strength. The 
mind, like the body, carries only that which it can 

typical difficulties, of which the very path we lead them 
by shall itself suggest the solution ; sometimes gently 
leading them, sometimes leaving them to the resource of 
their own unaided endeavors; till, little by little, we 
have conducted them through a process in which it would 
be almost impossible for them to tell how much is their 
own discovery, how much is what they have been told." 
" University Extension," ubi supra. 



The Practice or Art of Education, 137 

carry. But when the understanding appropriates 
things before depositing them in the memory, 
whatever it afterwards draws from thence is prop- 
erly its own." Again: " Another advantage, also 
resulting from this method, is, that we do not ac- 
custom ourselves to a servile submission to the au- 
thority of others ; but, by exercising our reason, 
grow every day more ingenious in the discovery of 
the relations of things, in connecting our ideas, 
and in the contrivance of machines ; whereas, by 
adopting those which are put into our hands, our 
invention grows dull and indifferent, as the man 
who never dresses himself, but is served in every- 
thing by his servants, and drawn about everywhere 
by his horses, loses by degrees the activity and use 
of his limbs. " ( " Essays on Educational Re- 
formers," p. 135.) 

These views of the fundamental principles in- 
volved in the art of teaching, it will be seen, are 
not novel. The only novelty is in the mode of 
stating them. Practical teachers will candidly 
judge, by reference to their own experience, of 
meir value and importance. 



138 The Practice or Art of Education. 



THE PRACTICE OR ART OF EDUCATION. 

ANALYSIS. 

PAGE 

Introduction 104 

What the Art of Education is 105 

The pupil teaches himself 105 

The teacher guides the pupil while he learns 106 

The pupil always self-taught 107 

How Nature teaches 107 

Nature does not explain 108 

Should there be explanation ? 109 

Yet Nature is not to be implicitly followed 112 

The Educator must recognize Nature's methods 114 

Illustration of self -teaching 115 

The teacher to guide merely 119 

Points of interest in this lesson , . . 120 

Example from Prof. Tyndall 123 

Things to be noted in this lesson 126 

(1) Pupil begins with concrete facts 120 

(2) He employs the analytical method. ........ 126 

(3) He gains mental power , 127 

(4) His knowledge is "incorporated into the or- 

ganic life of his mind" 127 

(5) He becomes logical 127 

(6) Acquires a groundwork of knowledge 127 

(7) Which will be clear , . . 128 

(8) Gains the habit of self-direction 128 






The Practice or Art of Education. 139 

fAGE 

Illustration of bad teaching 128 

First mistake: Begins with generalizations 128 

Second mistake: Teaches science from a book. 129 
Third mistake; Definitions not suited for stu- 
dents 129 

Fourth mistake: Their interest is lost 130 

Fifth mistake: He has used words and not things 131 

Sixth mistake: They get confused ideas 132 

Remarks 133 

Lessons on things should be given to children 134 

The pupil is to teach himself 135 

The teacher is to get the pupil to teach himself 135 

This is the practice of good teachers 136 



EDUCATIONAL METHODS. 



Science, Art, There is a just distinction between a Method 
"fined/ ° *" and an Art, and between these and a Science. A 
Method is a special mode of administering an Art, 
The art of and an Art is a practical display of a Science. In 
caiiing lo /orth education, every teacher must have some mode of 
^he^upu! exhibiting the notions he has of his art, and this 
mode is his Method. He is practising his Art 
whenever he calls forth the active powers of his 
pupils, let the subject on which he exercises them 
be what it may. A simple machine, a flower, a 
bit of chalk, or a portion of language may be 
the means for displaying his art. But if he con- 
tents himself with leading his pupils, in a desul- 
tory way, from one point of knowledge to another, 
from one temporary mental excitement to another, 
he risks their loss both of instruction and educa- 
tion — the one consisting in the orderly acquisition 
of knowledge ; the other in the . attainment, 
through instruction, of good mental habits. The 
His art good teacner > then, must define his object by a special 
if he knows the mo de or method for securing it. This method 

science ojr M.au- ° 

cation. w iU be the exponent of his notions of the Art of 



think. 



Educational Methods. 141 

Education, and will be good or bad just as these 
notions are sound or unsound ; and this, again, 
will depend on his knowledge of the Science of 
Education — a science, as was before shown, ulti- 
mately based on that of Human Nature. 

The principle being once admitted, that the in- His great ob- 
struction aimed at can only be gained by the the /Jpn°to gd 
thinking of the pupil, it follows that the direct 
object of the teacher is to get the learner to think. 
The mode of procedure which secures this object in 
the best way is the best method of teaching. There 
may, therefore, be many good methods of teaching ; 
but no method is good which does not recognize 
and appreciate the pupil's natural method of learn- 
ing. This principle, I repeat, serves as the test of 
the method employed by the teacher ; and it is in 
this sense that the pupil's subjective process of 
learning suggests the objective counterpart method 
of teaching. If the teacher succeeds in getting his 
pupils to do all the thinking by which the instruc- 
tion is gained, the method he employs must be a 
good one ; for, to repeat Dr. Temple's words 
already quoted, ''the master's success may be 
measured by the degree in which he can bring his 
pupils to make such exertions [i.e., the exertions 
of their own minds] absolutely without aid." In 
the system of agencies, then, by which the work 
of instruction is to be accomplished, the principle, 
that the pupil's own mental effort alone secures 
the intended result, is the centripetal force which 



142 Educational Methods, 

is ever tending to harmonize the details of the pro- 
What opposes cess. Continually acting in opposition to this are 
the centrifugal forces — volatility, indolence, indif- 
ference, etc., which tend to disturb its normal op- 
eration. The teacher who commands both these 
forces, directing the centripetal and controlling 
the centrifugal, is a master of educational method, 
and preserves unity of action amidst the endless 
diversities of his practice. 

It follows, from the foregoing observations, that 
as the characteristics of a good method of teaching 
are suggested and dictated by the characteristics of 
a good method of learning, it is important to 
know what is involved in a good method of learn- 
Te h Jching h °is °^ m g- I n the l ast Lecture, I endeavored to show, 
mitkof °o/ he b y an illustrative lesson, what the pupil, under the 
learning. direction of the teacher, does when engaged in 

teaching himself a machine. The lesson was, 
however, presented as typical, and may be applied, 
mutatis mutandis, to other subjects of instruction. 
It showed that a child can learn the elements of 
physical science by the exercise of his own mind 
' ' absolutely without the aid " of the teacher, ex- 
cept that aid which consists in maintaining the 
mental force by which the pupil acquires his 
knowledge. The teacher throughout recognized 
the native capacity of his pupils to learn, and his 
method consisted in stimulating that capacity to do 
its proper work. He gave no explanations, because, 
the machine being its ewn interpreter, none were 



Educational Methods. 143 

needed. He gave no definitions, because all defini- 
tions, given in anticipation of the facts on which 
they are founded, would have been unintelligible ; 
and he properly considered that the true basis of all 
science is a knowledge of facts. He recognized, 
in short, throughout the entire lesson, the prin- 
ciple which I have so often insisted on, that his 
pupils were teaching themselves, and that he was 
the director of the process. 

In order to show what the method of the pupil 
was, it is necessary briefly to recapitulate the main 
points of the process. We notice, then — 

1. That he began his self-teaching with tan- Begins with the 

•ill i'ii it tangible. 

gible and concrete matter, on which he could ex- 
ercise his natural senses. 

2. That he employed analysis in gaining his Analysis, then 
knowledge, and synthesis in displaying and apply- * yn 

ing it. 

3. That he was an explorer, experimenter, and The pupil an 

. . , explerer. 

inventor on his own account — a true, however 
feeble, disciple of the method of scientific investi- 
gation. 

4. That he proceeded in proportion to his Goes from the 
strength, and consequently from the known to the unknown. 
unknown. 

5. That the ideas that he gained, being derived Gets dear 
by himself from facts present to his senses, were 

clear and accurate as far as they went. 

6. That bv teaching himself — relying on his own Learns to di- 

. J ° . . red his own 

powers — in a special case, he was acquiring the powers. 



144 Educational Methods. 

power of teaching himself generally; and was 
therefore on the way to gain the habit of inde- 
pendent mental self-direction — the real goal of all 
the teacher's efforts. 
Understands 7. That he dispensed with all explanations on 

nation. the part of the teacher, though he was told the 

conventional and technical names for things which 
he already knew. 

These are not all, but they are, in the main, 
characteristics of the pupil's method of learning 
elementary science, and indeed of learning every- 
thing — language, geometry, arithmetic, for in- 
stance — which admits of analysis or decomposi- 
tion into parts, or which -ultimately rests on con- 
crete matter. In learning the imitative arts, the 
process will be somewhat varied, but the principles 
remain essentially the same; for it is the same 
human mind engaged in teaching itself under the 
direction of the teacher. 

All the main characteristics, then, of a good 
method of teaching are involved in those of the 
pupil's natural method of learning, that is to say, 
the teacher must begin his instructions in science, 
language, etc. , with concrete matter — with facts ; 
must exercise his pupil's native powers of observa- 
tion, judgment, and reasoning; call on him to 
practise analysis and synthesis ; make him explore, 
investigate, and discover for himself; and so on. 
The teacher Now it is obvious that, in order to maintain 

must know the m . . 

mind. that action and influence by which the pupils 



Educational Methods. 145 

method is to end in complete and accurate knowl- 
edge, the teacher must be well furnished with that 
knowledge of mental and moral phenomena — of 
human nature, in short — which, as I showed in 
the first Lecture, should constitute his own equip- 
ment as an educator. He must know what the 
mind does while thinking, in order to get his 
pupils to think correctly. He must also know 
the normal action of moral forces before he can 
effectually control the moral forces of his pupils. 
In short, he must know what education is, and 
what it can be expected to accomplish, before he 
can make it yield its best results. Without this 
knowledge, much of his labor may be misplaced, 
and, even if not altogether wasted, will be much 
less productive than it would otherwise have been. 

In order to show that these notions respecting 
the characteristics of a good method are not 
merely theoretical, I will now quote from an in- 
dependent source — Mr. Marcel's valuable treatise 
on teaching * — what he considers to be the main 
features of such a method. 

First, says Mr. Marcel, "A good method favors 

* " Language as a Means of Mental Culture and In- 
ternational Communication: a Manual of the Teacher 
and the Learner of Languages." By C. Marcel, Knt. 
Leg. Hon.; French Consul; 2 vols. i2mo; Chapman and 
Hall, 1853 — a work of conspicuous excellence on the 
whole art of teaching, and well deserving to be re- 
printed. 
xo 



146 Educational Methods. 

self-teaching /' and on this point he makes the 
following apt remarks : 
Main features < < One of the chief characteristics of a good 

of a good meth- ° 

cd according to method consists in enabling learners to dispense 
with the assistance of a teacher when they are 
capable of self-government. It should be so con- 
trived as to excite and direct their spontaneous 
efforts, and lead them to the conviction that they 
have the power, if they have the will, lo acquire 
whatever man has acquired. The prevailing 
notion that we must be taught everything [that is, 
by " the most stupid and most didactic method "] 
is a great evil. . . . The best-informed teachers 
and the most elaborate methods of instruction can 
impart nothing to the passive and inert mind. If 
even a learner succeeded in retaining and apply- 
ing the facts enumerated to him, the mental ac- 
quisition would then be vastly inferior to that 
which the investigation of a single fact, the 
analysis of a single combination [e.g., the fact of 
the pile-driving machine, the combinations it 
afforded], by his unaided reason, would achieve." 

Second, " A good method is in accordance with 
nature. " 

He adds : "The natural process by which the 
vernacular idiom is acquired demonstrates what 
can be done by self-instruction, and presents the 
best model for our imitation in devising a method 
of learning languages." This is only another way 
of stating the main proposition, that the method of 



Educational Methods. 147 

teaching is suggested by the natural method of 
learning. 

Third. " A good method comprises Analysis and 
Synthesis." 

''Analysis, the method of Nature, presents a 
whole, subdivides it into its parts, and from par- 
ticulars infers a general truth. By analysis we 
discover truths ; by synthesis we transmit them to 
others. . . . Analysis, consistently with the gen- 
eration of ideas and the process of nature, makes 
the learner pass from the known to the unknown ; 
it leads him by inductive reasoning to the object 
of study, and is both interesting and improving, 
as it keeps the mind actively engaged. Synthesis 
[Mr. Marcel here means the synthetic process of 
the teacher; there is a little confusion in his 
statement] , on the contrary, which imposes truths, 
and sets out with abstractions, presents little in- 
terest and few means of mental activity in the 
first stages of instruction. ... It is, however, 
necessary for completing the work commenced by 
analysis. In a rational method we should follow 
the natural course of mental investigation; we 
should proceed from facts to principles, and then 
from principles down to consequences. We 
should begin with analysis, and conclude with 
synthesis. ... In the study of the arts, decom- 
position and recomposition, classification and 
generalization, are the groundwork of creation" 
[i.e., ef invention]. 



148 Educational Methods, 

Fourth. "A good method is both practical and 
comparative. " 

Mr. Marcel, who has in view especially the 
learning of language, means that there should be 
both practice founded on imitation, and compari- 
son, conducted by the exercise of the reasoning 
powers. ''The former/' he says, "exercises the 
powers of perception, imitation, and analogy ; the 
latter those of reflection, conception, comparison, 
and reasoning ; the first leads to the art, the second to 
the science of language. . . . The one teaches how 
to use a language, the other how to use the higher 
faculties of the mind. The combination of both 
would constitute the most efficient system." It 
is needless to say that our model lesson on teach- 
ing elementary science presented both these 
characteristics. 

Fifth. ' ' A good method is an instrument of in- 
tellectual culture. " 

This is little more than a repetition of the pre- 
vious statements. However, Mr. Marcel, in in- 
sisting that a good method should cultivate all 
the intellectual faculties, further remarks, that 
"through such a method the reasoning powers 
will be unfolded by comparing, generalizing, and 
classifying the facts of language, by inferring and 
applying the rules of grammar, as also by discrim- 
inating between different sentiments, different 
styles, different writers, and different languages ; 
whilst the active co-operation of attention and 



Educational Methods. 149 

memory will be involved in the action of all the 
other faculties. " 

Such are, according to Mr. Marcel,, who only 
represents all the writers of any authority on the 
subject, the main criteria of a good method of 
teaching. It is obvious that, though he has 
chiefly in view' the teaching of languages, they 
strikingly coincide with the deductions we gath- 
ered from observing the pupil's own method of 
learning elementary science. The conclusion, 
then, appears inevitable, that the characteristics of 
a good method must be the same, whatever the 
subject of instruction, and that its goodness must 
be tested by its recognition or non-recognition of 
the natural laws of the process by which the 
human mind acquires knowledge for itself. 

Having thus indicated the main criteria of a 
good method of teaching, I shall employ the re- 
mainder of our time in the exposition and criticism 
of the methods of a few of the masters of the art. 

I begin with Roger Ascham's method of teach- Asckam's 
ing Latin, a method characterized by Mr. J. B. Teaching Latin. 
Mayor (himself a high authority on education), in 
his recently published valuable edition of "The 
Scholemaster," as "the only sound method of ac- 
quiring a dead language." 

Ascham gave his pupils a little dose of grammar First— to mem- 
to begin with. He required them to learn by grammar. 
heart about a page of matter containing a synopsis 
of the eight parts of speech, and the three concords. 



15° 



Educational Methods. 



Shows the 
meaning. 



Uses grammat 
ical terms. 



This was the grammatical equipment for their 
work. He then took an easy epistle of Cicero. 
What he did with it may be best learnt from his 
own words. "First," he said, "let the master 
teach the childe, cherefullie and plainlie, the cause 
and matter of the letter [that is, what it is about], 
then let him construe it into Englishe, so oft, as 
the childe may easilie carie awaie the understanding 
of it. Lastlie, parse it over perfitlie. [The teacher, 
it is seen, supplies conventional knowledge — the 
English word corresponding to the Latin — which 
the child could not possibly find out for himself, 
and strictly applies the modicum of grammar al- 
The child next ready learnt.] This done- thus, let the childe, by 
and by, both construe and parse it over againe ; 
so that it may appeare, that the childe douteth in 
nothing that his master taught him before. [This 
is the reproductive part of the process, involving 
a partial, mechanical synthesis.] After this, the 
childe must take a paper booke, and, sitting in some 
place where no man shall prompe him, by him self, 
let him translate into Englishe his former lesson. 
[This is a test of sound acquisition, and involves a 
more definite synthesis.] Then showing it [his 
translation] to his master, let the master take from 
him his Latin booke, and pausing an houre, at the 
least, than let the childe translate his owne Eng- 
lishe into Latin againe, in an other paper booke. 
[This is the critical test, the exact reproduction by 
memory, aided by judgment, of the knowledge 



applies new 
terms. 



Translates. 



Re-translates. 



Educational Methods. 151 

gained by observation and comparison, j When Compares with 

the childe bringeth it turned into Latin [his re- origtna ' 

translation] the master must compare it with Tul- 

lies booke [the Latin text of the epistle], and laie 

them both togither ; and where the childe doth 

well, either in chosing or true placing of Tullies 

words, let the master praise him, and saie, Here 

ye do well. For I assure you there is no such 

whetstone to sharpen a good witte and encourage 

a will to learninge, as is praise." [This last part 

of the process is especially valuable, involving the 

correction of faults in the presence of the model, 

the pupil being really taught, not by the arbitrary 

dictum of the master, but by the superior authority 

of the master's master, the author himself. ] 

In this way, supplying additional grammatical Rules are 

, 1 1 1 1 1 /• • • 1 . . drawn from 

knowledge by the law of exigence, just when it is the lesson. 
needed, the teacher finds in the text thus carefully 
"lessoned/* studied, and known by the pupil, 
"the ground,'' as Ascham puts it, "of almost all 
the rewles that are so busilie (anxiously) taught by 
the master, and so hardlie learned by the scholer, 
in all common scholes ; which after this sort the 
master shall teach withoute all error [because 
founded on facts present to view], and the scholer 
shall learn withoute great paine ; the master being 
led by so sure a guide, and the scholer being 
brought into so plaine and easie a waie. And, 
therefore," he proceeds, "we do not contemne 
rewles, but we gladlie teach rewles j and teach 



152 Educational Methods. 

them more plainlie, sensibile, and orderlie than 
they be commonlie taught in common scholes." 

We see in Ascham's method, that the concrete 
preceded the abstract ; the particulars, the gener- 
alization ; the examples of language, the gram- 
matical rules. He was thus carrying out the spirit 
of Dean Colet and Cardinal Wolsey, who had in- 
sisted, to use the words of the former, that if a 
man desires " to attain to understand Latin books, 
and to speak and to write clean Latin, let him 
above all busily (carefully) learn and read good 
Latin authors of chosen poets and orators, and 
note wisely how they wrote and spake, and study 
alway to follow them, desiring none other rules but 
their examples." After much more to the same 
effect, he ends his instructions to the masters of 
St. Paul's School, by urging that "busy (careful) 
imitation with tongue and pen more availeth 
shortly to get the true eloquent speech, than all 
the traditions, rules, and precepts of masters." 
Cardinal Wolsey uses nearly the same words in his 
directions to the masters of Ipswich School. 

Into the further details of Ascham's method, so 
quaintly described in the " Scholemaster," I cannot 
enter, except to say that, after a long training in 
double-translations, with the constant application 
of grammar rules as they are wanted ( ' ' the gram- 
mer booke being ever in the scholer's hand, and 
also used by him, as a dictionarie, for everie pres- 
ent use"), the master translates himself easy por- 



Educational Methods, 153 

tions of Cicero into English, and then requires the 
pupil, who has not seen the original, to turn them 
into Latin. The pupil's work is then to be care- 
fully compared with, and corrected by, the origi- 
nal, "for of good heedtaking springeth chiefly 
knowledge." This exercise prepares the scholar 
for independent composition in Latin. 

There is one feature especially in this method, The great feat. 
as described by Ascham, worthy of careful notice, a little well. 
and that is the close study of a small portion of lit- 
erary matter, endiiig in a complete mastery of it. 
The various exercises of the method require the 
pupil, as Ascham shows, to go over this portion at 
least a dozen times ; and, he adds significantly, 
" always with pleasure ; for pleasure allureth love, 
love hath lust to labor, labor always attaineth his 
purpose." By continually coming into direct con- 
tact with the phraseology of the text, the pupil 
masters the form, and through the form penetrates 
into the spirit of the author ; or, as Ascham 
phrases it, "by marking dailie and following dili- 
gentlie the footsteps of the best authors, the pupil 
understands their invention of arguments, their 
arrangement of topics, and hereby," he adds, 
"your scholar shall be brought not only to like 
[similar] eloquence, but also to all true under- 
standing and rightful judgment for speaking and 
writing." It appears, then, that Ascham's pupil 
proceeds firmly on a broad basis of facts, which 
he has made his own by mental conquest, and 



154 Educational Methods. 

that this has been possible because the field of 
conquest has been intentionally limited. It is ob- 
vious that no method of teaching which consists 
in bringing a bit of this thing (or author), a bit of 
that thing (or author), transiently before the pupil's 
mind, creating ideas, like dissolving views, each of 
which in its turn displaces its predecessor, which 
makes acquisitions only to abandon them before 
they are ''incorporated with the organic life of 
them," can possibly be a good method. Hence 
the very general result of our systems of education, 
so called, is a farrago of facts partially hatched into 
principles, mingled in unseemly jumble with rules 
half understood, exceptions claiming equal rank 
with the rules, definitions dislocated from the ob- 
jects they define, and technicalities which clog 
rather than facilitate, as they should do, the opera- 
tions of the mind. 
The teacher It would be easy to show that the valuable ends 

must aim at r . . . , . . , 

nndtumj not of instruction and education can only be gained 
by doing a little well ; that the ambition to grasp 
many things ignobly ends in the loss of the large 
majority of them {qui trop emlrasse mal etreint); 
that apprehension is not comprehension, and gen- 
erally, that to the characteristics of a good method 
of teaching we must add this, that it aims at secur- 
ing multum, but not multa. If the object of edu- 
cation is training to facility, to mental self-direc- 
tion, his principle must be constantly insisted on. 
I see, however, with the deepest regret, that our 



u multa. 



Educational Methods. 155 

educational amateurs — men of the best intentions, 
but of no practical experience — are continually 
violating it in their persistent attempts to extend 
the curriculum of elementary instruction. A little 
bit of this knowledge, a little bit of that — some in- 
formation on this point, and some on that — is so 
" useful." They forget that the most useful thing 
of all is the formation of good mental habits, and 
that these can only be formed by concentrating 
the mind on a few subjects, and making them the 
basis of training. When this supremely useful ob- 
ject has been gained, the curriculum may be ex- 
tended ad libitum ; but not till then. What is 
really wanted in primary, and indeed all classes of 
schools, is not so much more subjects to teach, 
but the power of teaching the ordinary subjects 
well. Asch-am's method, then, with some slight 
modifications, presents all the characteristic features 
of a good method of teaching, and is, I need not 
point out, identical in principle with that already 
illustrated. It is natural, simple, effective, al- 
though so widely different, in most of its features, 
from the traditional methods of our grammar 
schools ; which are indeed, in most respects, suited 
to the mental condition of the ambitious, active- 
minded, inventive few, but not at all to the ordi- 
nary mental condition of the many. We too The teacher 
often forget that the raison d'etre of the school- the majority 
master is the instruction, not of the minority who 0j 
will and can teach themselves, but of the majority 



156 Educational Methods. 

who can but will not. Our teaching force should 
regulate the movements rather of the ordinary 
planets than of the comets of the system. 
German educa- In the seventeenth century, a number of thought- 
century. e ful men — Germans — unsatisfied with the methods 
of education then in vogue, began almost simul- 
taneously to investigate the principles of education; 
and, as the result, arrived virtually at the conclu- 
sion on which I have so often insisted, that the 
teacher's function is really denned by that of the 
pupil, and that it is by understanding what he is, 
and what he does, that we learn how to treat him 
wisely and effectively. The eminent names of 
Ratich, Sturm, and especially Comenius, are con- 
nected with this movement. I can do no more 
than refer those who are interested in the details 
to Von Raumer's valuable "Geschichte der Pada- 
gogik," or to Mr. Quick's exposition of them in 
the ' ' Essays on Educational Reformers. " The 
results may be stated in Mr. Quick's words : 

"1. They (the reformers in question) proceed 
from the concrete to the abstract, giving some 
knowledge of the thing itself before the rules which 
refer to it. 2. They employ the student in analyz- 
ing matter put before him, rather than in working 
synthetically according to precept. 3. They re- 
quire the student to teach himself, under the super- 
intendence of the master, rather than be taught by 
the master, and receive anything on the master's 
authority. 4. They rely on the interest excited in 



Educational Methods. 157 

the pupil by the acquisition of knowledge ; and 
renounce coercion. 5. Only that which is under- 
stood may be committed to memory." 

The methods, then, of these reformers present 
the same characteristics which we have deductively 
gained by other means. 

In a lecture on Methods, it is impossible to omit 
the names of Locke and Rousseau. As, however, 
"it is easy to read through the short and very inter- 
esting "Treatise of Education" and the capital 
digest of the "Emile" in Mr. Quick's book, I 
may pass them over. 

We come next to Pestalozzi — a name of world- Pestaiozzi. 
wide renown, of still increasing influence. He 
differed essentially from Comenius, whom he prac- 
tically succeeded in the history of education, in 
being a comparatively uneducated man. W T hen Unlearned. 
once reproached by his enemies (of whom, from 
various causes, he had many) with being unable 
to read, write, and cipher respectably, he frankly 
acknowledged that the charge was true. On an- Not able to gov 
other occasion he confessed to an ' ' unrivalled in- ern ' 
capacity to govern"' — a confession which discovered 
a most accurate self-knowledge on his part ; and 
generally, his whole educational life bore witness 
to the deficiency of his mental equipment and 
training. He often bitterly deplored, when he 
could not remedy, this ignorance and incapacity. 
His mind, however, was remarkably active and Great moral 
enterprising, and his moral power truly immense. 



15 S Educational Methods. 

A thousand criticisms on his want of knowledge, 
of judgment, of the power of government, even of 
common sense (as men usually estimate that 
quality), fall powerless as attacks on a man whose 
unfailing hope, love, and patience not only formed 
his inward support under trials and disappoint- 
ments, but combined with that intense necessity 
of action, which was the essence of his nature, in 
stamping his moral influence on all around him. 
Virtue, with him, was not a mere word ; it was an 
Loved to teach energetic ever-acting force.* To instruct and 
loved the poor, humanize the poor wretched children who were 
generally his pupils, — to relieve their physical wants 
and sufferings, — to sympathize with them under 
their difficulties, — was to him not only a duty but 
a delight. To accomplish these objects, he worked 
like a horse (only harder), fagging and slaving 
sometimes from three in the morning till eleven at 
night, dressed himself like a mechanic, almost 
starved himself, became, as he tells us, " the chil- 
dren's teacher, trainer, paymaster, man-servant, 
and almost housemaid ;" and all this to gain the 

* Like most enthusiasts, however, he exercised it very 
irregularly. On one occasion, we are told, when re- 
duced to the utmost extremity for want of money, he 
borrowed 400 francs from a friend. Going home, he 
met a peasant wringing his hands in despair for the loss 
of his cow. Without a moment's hesitation, Pestalozzi 
put the purse with all its contents into the man's hands 
and ran off, as quick as he could, to escape his thanks, 



Educational Methods. 159 

means for instructing, boarding, sometimes even 
clothing, children who not unfrequently rewarded 
his labors with ingratitude and scorn. Pestalozzi 
was indeed the Howard of schoolmasters. 

It was his unbounded philanthropy that first led 
him to become a schoolmaster, — his intense love 
and pity that supplied both motive and means. 
He saw around him children perishing, as he con- 
ceived, for lack of knowledge ; and though pos- 
sessed of little himself, though mentally untrained, 
though ignorant of the experience of other teach- 
ers, he resolved, with such appliances as he had, 
to commence the work. The one ruling thought 
in his mind was, "Here are poor, ignorant chil- 
dren. From my heart I pity them. I feel that I 
can do them some good. Let me try. " 

It is not to be wondered at that his trials often 
proved " trials" indeed, and ended in utter disap- 
pointment : for although his educational instincts 
furnished him with excellent notions and theories 
about teaching, the actual results were often un- 
satisfactory. In this intense eagerness to press 
forward, he never stopped to examine results, nor 
to co-ordinate means with ends. Provided that he 
could excite, as he generally did, a vivid interest 
in the actual lesson, he was contented with that 
excitement as the end of his teaching. Thus, 
while he, to some extent, developed the mental 
powers, he did not even conceive of the higher end 
of training them to independent action. 



160 Educational Methods. 

Pestaiozzts In order to show what Pestalozzi's method of 

Teaching: teaching really was, I shall quote some passages 

from an interesting narrative written by Ramsauer, 

who was first a pupil and then a teacher in one of 

Pestalozzi's schools.* 

Referring to his experience as a pupil, he says, 
"I got about as much regular schooling as the 
other scholars — namely, none at all ; but his 
(Pestalozzi's) sacred zeal, his devoted love, which 
caused him to be entirely unmindful of himself, 
his serious and depressed state of mind, which 
struck even the children, made the deepest im- 
pression on me, and knit my childlike and grate- 
ful heart to his forever. " 
Form. Pestalozzi had a notion ' ' that all the instruc- 

tion of the school should start from form, number, 
and language ; so that the entire curriculum con 
sisted of drawing, ciphering, and exercises in lan- 
guage." "We neither read nor wrote," fays 
Ramsauer, "nor were we required to commit to 
memory anything, secular or sacred. " 

"For the drawing, we had neither copies to 
draw from nor directions what to draw, but only 
crayons and boards ; and we were told to draw 
'what we liked.' . . . But we did not know what 
to draw, and so it happened that some drew men 

* These quotations are taken from a translation by Mr. 
Tilleard of Von Raumer's account of Pestalozzi's Life and 
System, given in the " Geschichte der Padagogik." 



Educational Methods. 161 

and women, some houses, etc. . . . Pestalozzi 
never looked to see what we had drawn, or rather 
scribbled ; but the clothes of all the scholars, es- 
pecially the sleeves and elbows, gave unmistak- 
able evidence that they had been making due use 
of their crayons. " [This is a remarkable specimen 
of children being left to teach themselves, without 
the careful superintendence of the teacher, and cer- 
tainly does not recommend the practice.] 

" For the ciphering," Ramsauer says, "we had Number. 
between every two scholars a small table pasted 
on mill-board, on which, in quadrangular fields, 
were marked dots which we had to count, to add 
together, to subtract, to multiply and divide, by 
one another/' [Here there is obviously some 
superintendence ; the character of it, however, is 
seen in what follows.] "But as Pestalozzi only 
allowed the scholars to go over and to repeat the 
exercises in their turns, and never questioned them 
nor set them tasks, these exercises, which were 
otherwise very good, remained without any great 
utility. He had not sufficient patience to allow 
things to be gone over again, or to put questions ; 
and in his enormous zeal for the instruction of the 
whole school, he seemed not to concern himself 
in the slightest degree for the individual scholar." 
[These are Ramsauer's words, and they give a 
curious idea of a superintendence which involved 
neither knowledge of the nature of the machine, 
nor a true conception of the end towards which i' 
xx 



1 62 Educational Methods. 

was working, nor any notion of the corrections 
necessary to control its aberrations and apply its 
action to special cases. Yet, as making concrete 
matter the basis of the abstractions of number, it 
was good ; and good, too, in employing the 
pupil's own observation, and his analytical and 
synthetical faculties. Hence we find that Pesta- 
lozzi was more successful in teaching arithmetic 
Language. than anything else. ] 

Ramsauer proceeds : " The best things we had 
with him were the exercises on language, at least 
those which he gave us on the paper-hangings of 
the school-room, and which were real exercises on 
observation." " These hangings," he goes on to 
say, ' ' were very old and a good deal torn ; and 
before these we had frequently to stand for two or 
three hours together, and say what we observed in 
respect to the form, number, position, and color 
of the figures painted on them and the holes torn 
in them, and to express what we observed in sen- 
tences gradually increasing in length. On such 
occasions he would say, ' Boys, what do you see ? ' 
(He never named the girls.) Ans. — A hole in the 
wainscot (meaning the hangings). P. — Very 
good. Now repeat after me : I see a hole in the 
wainscot. I see a long hole in the wainscot. 
Through the hole I see the wall. Through the 
long narrow hole I see the wall. P. — Repeat 
after me , I see figures on the paper-hangings. I 
see black figures on the paper-hangings. I see 



Educational Methods. 163 

round black figures on the paper-hangings. I see 
a square yellow figure on the paper-hangings. 
Beside the square yellow figure I see black round 
figures, etc. 

"Of less utility were those exercises in language 
which he took from natural history, and in which 
Ave had to repeat after him, and at the same time 
to draw, as 1 have already mentioned. He would 
say : Amphibious animals — crawling amphibious 
animals, creeping amphibious animals. Monkeys 
— long-tailed monkeys, short-tailed monkeys, — 
and so on," 

Ramsauer adds: "We did not understand a 
word of this, for not a word was explained ; and 
it was all spoken in such a sing-song tone, and so 
rapidly and indistinctly, that it would have been 
a wonder if any one had understood anything of 
it, and had learnt anything from it. Besides, 
Pestalozzi cried out so dreadfully loud and so 
continuously that he could not hear us repeat 
after him, the less so as he never waited for us 
when he had. read out a sentence, but went on 
without intermission, and read off a whole page at 
once. Our repetition consisted for the most part 
in saying the last word or syllable of each phrase ; 
thus, 'Monkeys — monkeys,' or 'Keys — keys.' 
There was never any questioning or recapitula- 
tion. " 

This long but interesting account, from the pen 
of an attached pupil, fairly represents (as we learn 



164 



Educational Methods. 



Faults. 



1. Not self- 
teaching. 



from Von Raumer himself, who spent nearly nine 
months in the school) Pestalozzi's actual teaching, 
though not the ideal which, in describing results 
to strangers, he often, in his enthusiasm, substi' 
tuted for it. 

In criticising it, we observe, in the first place, 
that Pestalozzi's method excites mental action to 
some extent, but secures the ends neither of in- 
struction nor education. It scarcely at all recog- 
nizes the self-teaching of the child, but rather 
supersedes it by the mechanical repetition of the 
master's words. The observation of the child, 
called for a moment to the properties of objects, is 
immediately checked by the resolution, on the 
part of the teacher, of the lesson on things into a 
lesson on words. The naming of qualities, not 
ascertained by investigation, but pointed out by the 
teacher, constitutes what Pestalozzi looked on in 
theory as a training of the powers of observation. 
Von Raumer, Professors Maiden and Mosely, and 
Herbert Spencer, all agree in their estimate both of 
the value of Pestalozzi's theory respecting object- 
teaching, and the comparative worthlessness of his 
s practice. In fact, to hold up a piece of chalk be- , 
fore a class (keeping it in your own hands all the 
while), to call out "That is chalk," and to make 
the class repeat after you three times, ' ' That is 
chalk! that is chalk! that is chalk!" or "Chalk 
is white," "Chalk is hard," etc., is in no proper 
sense teaching the properties of chalk, but only the 



instead 
j'ects, 



0/ ob- 



Educational Methods. 165 

names of its properties. Pestalozzi, however, 
never saw this, nor that his method generally had 
no tendency to train the mind. An additional 
proof of his blindness in this respect was that he 
drew up manuals of instruction for his teachers 
which involved in their use a perfectly slavish 
routine. Thus we learn from his "Book for 
Mothers," that the teacher, in teaching a child the 
parts of his own body (which he fancied was the 
subject to be first taught), is to go, word for word, 
through a quantity of such matter as this : "The 
middle bones of the index finger are placed out- 
side, on the middle joints of the index finger, be- 
tween the back and middle members of the index 
finger, "etc. Then he compiled a spelling-book Words and not 
containing long lists of words, which were to be 
repeated to the infant in its cradle, before it was 
able to pronounce even one of them, that they 
might be deeply impressed on its memory by fre- 
quent repetition. 

On the whole, then, from Pestalozzi's method 
pur et simple, there is little to be gained. It was 
much improved subsequently by some of his 
teachers, Schmid, Niederer, etc., who saw in his 
theories applications which he failed to see him- 
self. Had he been educated in education, — had 
he, moreover, profited by the experience of others, 
— had he brought his practice into conformity 
with his principles (crude enough though some of 
these were) — his career, instead of being a series 



1 66 Educational Methods. 

of failures and disappointments, many of them 
due, nowever, to his unrivalled "incapacity to 
govern," would have been one of triumphant suc- 
cess. 

Set his j>rinci- As it is, we owe him much. His principles, 

greatYnkerit- and much of his practice, are an inheritance that 
the world will not willingly let die. Let us, how- 
ever, leave the noble-minded, self-sacrificing Pes- 
talozzi, with all his virtues and all his faults, and 
pass on to Jacotot. 

jacotot. It should be stated in the outset, that Jacotot 

was rather an educator of the mind than of all the 
human forces. He does not appear to have been 
placed in circumstances which required him to 
develop and train, by special treatment, the physi- 
cal and moral powers ; although the moral force 
of his own energetic character, as well as that of 
his system, could not but be, and was, vitally in- 
fluential on the whole being of his pupils. It is, 
however, mainly as a teacher that I propose to 
consider him. 

His history. But some here will inquire who was Jacotot ; 

a question I have no time to answer in detail. I 
can merely say that he was born at Dijon in 1770; 
was educated at the college of that town ; at 
nineteen years of age took the degree of Docteur- 
eVLettres, and was appointed Professor of Hu- 
manities {i.e., grammar, rhetoric, and composi- 
tion) in the same college ; when the troubles of 
his country arose, became, at the age of twenty- 



Educational Methods, 167 

two, a captain of artillery, and fought bravely at 
the sieges of Maestricht and Valenciennes ; was 
afterwards made sub-director of the Polytechnic 
School at Paris ; then Professor of the Method of 
Sciences at Dijon ; and later Professor of Pure and 
Transcendental Mathematics, Roman Law, An- 
cient and Oriental Languages in different colleges 
and universities. Obliged, as a marked opponent 
of the Bourbons, to leave France on their restora- 
tion, he took refuge in Brussels, and was in 181 8 
appointed by the Belgian government Professor of 
the French Language and Literature in the Uni- 
versity of Louvain ; there discovered the method 
of teaching which goes by his name ; devoted the 
remainder of his life to propagating it ; and died 
at Paris in 1 840, being then seventy years of age. 

We are told that, as a schoolboy, he displayed His character- 
some remarkable characteristics. He was what 
teachers, and especially dull ones, consider a par- 
ticularly " objectionable" child. He was one of 
those children who " wanted to know, you know," 
why this thing was so ; why that other thing was 
not. He showed little deference, I am afraid, to 
the formal, didactic prelections of his teachers. 
Not that he was idle ; far from that. We are told 
that he delighted in the acquisition of all kinds of 
knowledge that could be gained by his own efforts, 
while he steadily resisted what was imposed on 
him by authority ; admitting nothing which was 
prima facie contestable ; rejecting whatever he 



1 68 Educational Methods. 

could not see clearly ; refusing to learn by heart 
grammars, or, indeed, any mere digests of con- 
clusions made by others. At the same time he 
eagerly committed to memory passages of authors 
which pleased him, thus spontaneously preferring 
the society of the "masters of the grammarians" 

Self-taught. to that of the grammarians themselves. Even as a 
child, nearly everything he knew he had taught 
himself. He was in short, ill adapted to be a 
pupil of any of those methods which, in Mrs. 
Pipchin's fashion, are intended to open the mind 
of a child like an oyster, instead of encouraging it 
to develop like a flower. As a professor, his 
rooms were always crowded with eager pupils ; 
and his inaugural address at Louvain was re- 
ceived, we are told by one who was present, with 
an enthusiasm like that which usually greeted 
Talma on the stage. 

His style of His style of teaching, as a professor, before the 

ing. invention of his method, was striking and original. 

Instead of pouring forth a flood of information 
on the subject under attention from his own 
ample stores, explaining everything, and thus too 
frequently superseding, in a great degree, the 
pupil's own investigation of it, Jacotot, after a 
simple statement of the object of the lesson, with 
its leading divisions, boldly started it as a quarry 
for the class to hunt down, and invited every 
member to take part in the chase. All were at 
liberty to raise questions, make objections, and 



Educational Methods, 169 

suggest answers, to ask for facts as the basis of 
arguments, to repudiate mere didactic authority. 
During the discussion, the teacher confined him- 
self to asking questions, to suggesting now and 
then a fresh scent, to requiring clear statements 
and mutual courtesy; but of teaching, in the 
popular sense of the term, as consisting in the 
authoritative communication of knowledge, there 
was little or none. His object throughout was to His object was 
excite, maintain, and direct the intellectual ener- direct* * 
gies of his pupils — to train them to think. The 
lesson was concluded by his summing up the 
arguments that had been adduced, and stating 
clearly the results obtained.* 



* Mr. Wilson, of Rugby, in his admirable paper in the 
" Essays on a Liberal Education," thus describes, in al- 
most identical terms, what he considers a proper method 
of teaching science : 

" Theory and experience alike convince me that the 
master who is teaching a class quite unfamiliar with scien- 
tific method ought to make his class teach themselves, by 
thinking out the subject of the lecture with them, tak- 
ing up their suggestions and illustrations, criticising them, 
hunting them down, and proving a suggestion barren or 
an illustration inapt ; starting them on a fresh scent when 
they are at fault, reminding them of some familiar fact 
they had overlooked, and so eliciting out of the chaos of 
vague notions that are afloat on the matter in hand — be it 
the laws of motion, the evaporation of water, or the 
origin of the drift — something of order, and concatenation, 
and interest, before the key to the mystery is given, even 



170 Educational Methods, 

Origin o/jaco- \y e come now to the origin of Tacotot's method. 

tot s method. ° J 

In entering on his duties at Louvain, he found 
that he had to lecture to students, many of whom 
knew nothing of French. As he was himself 
ignorant of Flemish, the problem was, how to 
teach them. He solved it in this way. He put 
into their hands copies of Telemaque, which con- 
tained a Flemish translation, not literal, on the 
opposite page. After some exercises in pronun- 
ciation, he directed the students, through an in- 
terpreter, to commit to memory a few sentences of 
the French text, and gather their general meaning 
from the version in their own language. They 
were told, on the second day, and for several 
days, to add other portions in the same way, 
while carefully repeating from the beginning. 
Laying in of This process, the laying in of materials, was re- 

materials. 

if, after all, it has to be given. Training to think, not to 
be a mechanic or surveyor, must be first and foremost as 
his object. So valuable are the subjects intrinsically, and 
such excellent models do they provide, that the most 
stupid and didactic teaching will not be useless, but it will 
not be the same source of power that " the method of in- 
vestigation" will be in the hands of a good master. Some 
few will work out a logic of proof, and a logic of dis- 
covery, when the facts and laws that are discovered and 
proved have had time to lie and crystallize in their minds. 
But imbued with scientific method they scarcely will be, 
unless it springs up spontaneously in them." — On Teach- 
ing Natural Science in Schools." Essays on a Liberal 
Education, pp. 281, 282. 



Educational Methods. 171 

peated until a page or two of the book was 
thoroughly known — that is, known so that the 
pupils could go on with any sentences of the 
French text from memory, when the first word 
was given, or quote the whole sentence in which 
any given word occurred, while they had at the 
same time a general idea of the meaning. The Questions. 
teacher now began, through his interpreter, to put 
questions, in order to test their knowledge, not 
only of the sentences as wholes, but also of the 
component phrases and words. As the process of 
learning by heart, and repeating from the begin- 
ning, went on, the questions became more close 
and specific, so as to induce in the pupils' minds 
an analysis of the text into its minutest elements. 
When about half the first book of Telemaque was Re-states. 
thus intimately known, Jacotot told them to re- 
late in their own French, good or bad, the sub- 
stance, not the exact words, of this or that para- 
graph of the portion that they knew, or to read a 
paragraph of another part of the book, and write 
down or say what it was about. He was sur- 
prised at their success in this synthetic use of their 
fund of materials. He praised their achievements, To compare. 
saw, but took no notice of, the blunders ; or, if he 
did, it was simply to require the pupils to correct 
them themselves by reference to the text (just as 
Ascham did). He reckoned on the power of the 
process itself, which involved an active exercise of 
the mind, to correct blunders which arose from 



172 Educational Methods. 

inadvertence. In a very short time, these youths, 
learning, repeating, answering questions, were 
able to relate anything they had first read over. 
Compositions of different kinds, their text furnish- 
ing both subjects and language, were then given, 
and it was found that as they advanced they spon- 
taneously recognized in their practice the rules of 
orthography and grammar (without having learned 
them), and at length wrote a language not their 
own better (as Jacotot somewhat extravagantly de- 
clared) — that is, with a more complete command 
of the force, correctness, and even graces of style 
— than either himself or any of his colleagues. 

All were surprised at the result of his experi- 
ment, but Jacotot alone perceived the principles 
involved in it. He saw — 
Pufiis learned (i) That his pupils had learned French, not 

by their own . . , . . . . _ . . 

work— not his. through his knowledge of it — the circumstances 
forbade that — but through the exercise of their 
own minds upon the matter of the text, which 
they had committed to memory. If they had had 
any teacher, the book had been their teacher. It 
was from that source they had derived all their 
knowledge, and the exercise of their observing, 
remembering, comparing, generalizing, judging, 
and analyzing powers upon it had supplied them 
with the materials they employed in their synthetic 
applications. 

Taught them- (2) He saw that, though he had been nominally 
their teacher, they had really taught themselves, — 



Educational Methods, 173 

that the acquisitions they had made were their 
own acquisitions, the fruit of their own mental 
exertions, — that the method by which they had 
learned was really their method, not his. 

(3) He deduced from this observation, that the The teacher to 
function of the teacher is that of an external moral 
force, always in operation to excite, maintain and 
direct the mental action of the pupils, — to en- 
courage and sympathize with his efforts, but 
never to supersede them. 

After a while Jacotot presented, in the form given 
below, the result of his meditations on the prin- 
ciples involved in his experiments. This precept 
for the guidance of the teacher is in fact — as will 
be at once seen — an epitome of the method of the 
learner, and indeed of all learners, whatever be 
their age, or the subject they may wish to learn so 
as really to know. 

This, then, is the fundamental precept of Jacotjfsfre- 
Jacotot's method : Ilfaut apprendre quelque chose, 
et y rapporter tout le reste ; i.e., the pupil must 
learn something, and refer all the rest to it. 
When further explanation was demanded, he 
would reply to this effect : 

( 1 ) Learn — i. e. , learn so as to know thoroughly, 
perfectly, immovably — (impe?'furbablement), as well 
six months or twelve months hence as now — 
something, a portion of a book, for instance. (2) 
Repeat that something, the portion learned, in- 
cessantly — i.e., every day or very frequently (sans 



174 Educational Methods. 

cesse), from the beginning, without any omission, 
so that no part of it be forgotten. (3) Reflect 
upon the matter thus acquired — analyze it, decom- 
pose it, re-combine the elements, make it a real 
mental possession in all its details, interpret the 
unknown by it. (4) Verify — test general remarks 
— i.e., grammatical and other rules — by compar- 
ing them with the facts — the phraseology and con- 
struction which you already know. In brief, 
learn, repeat, reflect, verify ; or, if you liKe, learn, 
verify, repeat, reflect ; so that you learn first, the 
order of the other processes is unimportant. 
Know facts, then ; bring all the powers of the 
mind to bear upon them ; and repeat what you 
know, to prevent its being lost. This is the 
method of Jacotot, which may be otherwise repre- 
sented thus : 

In all your learning, do homage to the author- 
ity of facts. 

(1) Apprenez. — Learn them accurately; grasp 
them firmly ; apprehend, so as to know them. 

(2) Rapportez. — Compare them with each other, 
interpret one by another, make the known explain 
the unknown, generalize them, classify them, 
analyze them into their elements, re-combine the 
elements, attach new knowledge to the pegs al- 
ready fixed in your mind. 

(3) Repetez. — Don't let the facts slip away from 
you. To lose them, is to waste the labor you 
spent in acquiring them. Keep them, therefore, 
continually before you by repetition. 



Educational Methods. 175 

(4) Verifiez. — Test general principles, said to be 
founded on them, by confronting them with your 
facts. Bring your grammatical rules to the facts, 
and explain the facts by them. 

In all this process, the pupil is employing 
natural means for a natural end. He is doing 
what he did in the case of the pile-driving machine 
— observing, comparing, investigating, discover- 
ing, inventing ; and if we apply the tests — Mr. 
Marcel's or any other — of a good method, we find 
them all in this, which is the method of the pupil, 
teaching himself under the direction of the master. 

It is, in short, as said before, the method by 
which all learners — whether the little child in 
nature's infant school, or the adult man in the 
school of science — learn whatever they really know. 
In both cases, the essential basis of all mental 
progress is a knowledge of facts — a knowledge 
which, to be fruitful, must be gained at first hand, 
and not on the report of others, must be strict 
and accurate, and must be firmly retained. These 
are the essential conditions for the subsequent 
operation by which knowledge is appropriated, 
assimilated, and incorporated with the organic life 
of the mind. On this point, however, I cannot 
further dwell. 

In order to make the principles of Jacotot's Teaching read- 
method clearer by a practical example, I will give, method.^ " 
in some detail, an account of his plan of teaching 
Reading. 



176 Educational Methods. 

In this method, the sacred mysteries of b-a, ba ; 
b-e, be, in pronouncing which, Dr. Bell gravely 
tells us, "the sound is an echo to the sense" are 
altogether exploded ; those columns too, all sym- 
metrically arranged in the vestibule of the temple 
of knowledge, to the dismay of the young pilgrim 
to its shrine, are entirely ignored. The sphynx of 
the alphabet never asks him what se-a-tee spells, 
nor devours him if he fails to give the impossible 
answer, cat. The child who has already learnt to 
speak by hearing and using whole words, not 
separate letters — saying baby, not bee-a, bee-wy — 
has whole words placed before him. These words 
are at first treated as pictures, which have names 
that he has to learn to associate with the forms, in 
the same way that he already calls a certain animal 
shape a cow, and another a dog, and knows a cer- 
tain face as mammas, and another as papas. Sup- 
pose we take a little story, which begins thus : 
Teaches the ' ' Frank and Robert were two little boys about 

eight years old. " 

There is, of course, a host of reasons to show 
the unreasonableness of beginning to teach read- 
ing by whole words. We ought, we are told, to 
begin with the elements, put them together for 
the child, arrange words in classes for him, 
keep all difficulties out of his way, proceed step 
by step from one combination to another, and so 
on. Reflecting, however, that Nature does not 
teach speaking, nor give her object-lessons in this 



•words. 



' 



Educational Methods. 177 

way, but first presents wholes, aggregates, com- 
pounds, which her pupil's analytic faculty resolves 
into their elements, the teacher sets aside all these 
speculative difficulties ; and, believing in the na- 
tive capacity of the child to exercise on printed 
words the same powers which he has already ex- 
ercised on spoken words, forms the connection 
between the two by saying to the child, " Look at 
me" (not at the book). He then very deliberately 
and distinctly, but without grimacing, utters the 
sound " Frank" two or three times, and gets the 
child to do the same repeatedly, so as to secure 
from the first a clear and firm articulation. He 
then points to the printed word, repeats, " Frank," 
and requires the child, in view of it, to utter the 
same sound several times. The first word is 
learned and known. The teacher adds "and." 
The child reads "Frank and." The teacher adds 
' ' Robert. " The child reads ' ' Frank and Robert. " 
The teacher asks, "Which is 'Robert? ' and ? 
What is that word?" (pointing to it) "and that?" 
etc. The teacher says, "Show me 'and,' 'Rob- 
ert,' ' Frank/ in the same page — in any page." 

The same process is repeated with the rest of the 
words of the sentence, and comes out thus : 

Frank 

Frank and 

Frank and Robert 

Frank and Robert were, etc.; 



178 Educational Methods. 

the pupil is told each word once for all, and re- 
peats from the beginning, that nothing may be 
forgotten. By thus (1) learning, (2) repeating, 
he exercises perception and memory. 

Suppose that the next sentences are — 

"They were both very fond of playing with 
balls, tops, and marbles. 

' ' One day, as they were playing in the garden, 
it began to thunder very loud and to rain very 
hard. 

" So they ran under the apple-tree." 

All the words of these sentences may be grad- 
ually learned, in the same way, in four, six, or 
ten lessons. There is" no need for haste. The 
only thing needful is accurate knowledge — to have 
something {quelque chose) thoroughly, perfectly, 
immovably known {imperturbablement apprise). 

The child has up to this point imitated the 
sounds given him, has associated them with the 
signs, has exercised observation and memory ; so 
that wherever he meets with these words in his 
book, the sign will suggest the sound — or given 
the sound, he will at once point out the sign. 

The teacher may now, if he thinks fit, begin to 
He analyzes. exercise the child's analytical and inductive facul- 
ties; not, however, necessarily on any sym- 
metrical plan. He says, "Look at me," and pro- 
nounces very distinctly /-rank, repeating the 
process in view of the printed word. He does 
the same with f-ond a.n(\f-ast, and asks the child, 



Educational Methods. 179 

"Which letter is _/?"' (the articulation, not the 
name ef). The child points it out, and in this 
wavy (that is, the articulation, the power of it) is 
learned and known. 

The teacher covers over the f in /rank, and - 
asks what is left. The child replies "rank." The 
teacher proceeds as before, uttering r-ank, and 
requiring the child to read for himself R-obert, 
r-ain, r-an, and thus the articulation of initial r is 
mastered. In the same way, the articulation / is 
gained from l-ittle and l-ond. Nor do the mutes, 
as b and p, present any difficulty. The utterance 
of b-oys, b-oth, b-alls, b-egan suggests the neces- 
sary configuration of the organs, and the function 
of these letters is appreciated. 

The teacher may next, if he pleases, though it 
is not necessary to anticipate the natural results of 
the process, try the synthetic or combining powers 
of the child. He writes on a black-board in 
printing letters, the words fold, falls, fops, fain, 
frond, fray, ray, rap, lank, flank, last, loth, lops, 
let, lair, lap, bank, bat, bold, bay, blank, etc., and 
requires the child, without any help whatever, to 
read them himself. Most children will do this at 
once. If there is any difficulty, a simple reference 
to the words Frank, little, boys, etc., without any 
explanation, will immediately dispel it. 

It is not necessary, I repeat, for the teacher thus The pupu does 
to anticipate the inevitable results of the process. 
The quickened mind of the pupil will, of its own 



180 Educational Methods. 

accord, analyze and combine, in its natural in- 
stinct to interpret the unknown by the known. 
The only essential parts of the process are learning 
and repeating from the beginning ; all the rest de- 
pends on these. And in guiding the mind of the 
pupil to the intellectual use of his materials, the ' 
teacher should be under no anxiety about the I 
length of the process. He should often practise a i 
masterly inactivity; should know how to gain 
time by losing it — to advance by standing still. If 
he have a genuine belief in the native capacity of 
his pupils' minds, he need have no fear as to the 
result. The pupil (i) learning, (2) repeating, (3) 
reflecting — i.e., analyzing or decomposing, (4) 
recombining, is all along employing his active 
powers as an observer and investigator, and learns 
at length to read accurately and to articulate justly. 
The names of the letters may be given him when 
he has thus learnt their powers. It is a conveni- 
ence, nothing more, to know them. The young 
carpenter saws and planes no better for knowing 
the names of his tools. 

Such, then, is Jacotot's method applied to the 
teaching of Reading. It ought, by theory, to ac- 
complish this object, and it does. While philoso- 
phers are discussing the propriety of learning a 
subject without beginning secundum artem at what 
they call the beginning, the child, like the epic 
poet, dashes in medias res, and arrives at the end 
long before the discussion is over. A young in- 



Educational Methods. 181 

vestigator of this school, initiated in the habit of 
actively employing his mind on the subject of 
study, laughs at the ingenious arrangements, how- 
ever kindly meant, furnished by various spelling- 
book makers to aid him in his career. He turns 
aside from ram, rem, rim, rom, rum — adge, edge, 
idge, odge, and udge, — indeed, from all the scien- 
tific permutations made for him on the assump- 
tion that he cannot make them himself. He is 
told that there is a go-cart provided to help him 
to walk, — that the food is ready minced for his 
eating : but he chooses to walk and comminute 
his food for himself. Why should we prevent 
him? 

This method is essentially the same as Mr. 
Curwen's "Look and Say Method," and that of 
the little book entitled "Reading without Spell- 
ing, or the Teacher's Delight;" the only difference 
being that the teacher here employs the process 
consciously as a means of developing and train- 
ing the mental powers as well as of teaching to 
read, of education as well as of instruction. 

My pleasant task is now done. I have left Review. 
much unsaid that I wish to say ; and, in criticis- 
ing others, have, no doubt, exposed myself to 
criticism. As that is the common lot, I ought not 
to complain of it. I will, in conclusion, go over 
the main points which I have touched upon in 
the three lectures. 

In my first Lecture I endeavored to show that 



182 Educational Methods. 

education is both a science and an art, and that 
the principles of the science account for, explain, 
and give laws to the processes of the art; that 
the educator's own education is incomplete with- 
out a knowledge of these principles, which are 
ultimately grounded on those of Physiology, Psy- 
chology, and Ethics ; that this knowledge is use- 
ful, not only in its application to the normal 
phenomena occurring in practice, but especially 
to the abnormal, which demand for their treatment 
all the resources of the science ; that knowledge 
of this kind is comparatively rare amongst educa- 
tors, and that its rarity is the main cause of the 
unsatisfactory condition of much of our education. 
In the second Lecture, assuming the education 
of the educator, and confining myself to teaching, 
or the art of intellectual education, I endeavored 
to show that the teacher ought, in the first place, 
to have a just conception of his relation to his 
pupil ; that this was gained by his seeing in the 
child one who had learned, or taught himself, all 
that he had already knew, and inferring, therefore, 
that it w r as his business to continue the process 
already begun ; that it thus appeared that the 
child's process of learning was, to a great extent, 
a guide to the teacher's process of teaching, and 
that the joint operation in which both were en- 
gaged resolved itself into the superintendence, or 
direction, by the teacher, of the pupil's method of 
self-instruction. 



I 



Educational Methods. 183 



In this Lecture, I have shown that a method of 
teaching any subject is a special mode of applying 
the art of teaching ; that to be a good method, it 
must have certain characteristics, deduced from 
successful practice, and ultimately referable to the 
principles of the science of education, and I have 
described, and to some extent criticised, a few 
well-known methods. 

My simple aim, in these Lectures, has been to 
lead the educator to form a high idea of his work ; 
to show that there are principles underlying his 
practice which it is important for him to know, 
and to induce him to study and apply them, not 
only for his own sake, but as a protest against the 
despotism of routine, which has so long "hindered 
education from claiming its professional rights in 
England. I trust I have not altogether failed to 
accomplish my purpose. 



184 Educational Methods. 



EDUCATIONAL METHODS. 



ANALYSIS. 

PAGfl 

Science, Art, and Method defined 140 

The Art of Education is calling forth the powers of 

the pupil 140 

The teacher's Art will be good if he knows the 

Science of Education 140 

His great object is to get the pupil to think 141 

What opposes this 142 

The method of teaching is founded on the method of 

living. ; 142 

(1) Begins with the tangible 142 

(2) Analysis, then synthesis 142 

(3) The pupil is an explorer 142 

(4) Goes from the known to the unknown 142 

(5) Gets clear ideas 142 

(6) Learns to direct his own powers. 142 

(7) Needs no explanations 143 

The teacher must know the mind 143 

Moral ideas of a good method of teaching 146 

(1) It favors self-teaching 146 

(2) It must be in accordance with Nature 146 

(3) It comprises Analysis and Synthesis 147 

(4) It is both practical and comparative 148 

(5) It is an instrument of culture 148 

Ascham's Method in Latin 149 

(1) A little grammar 149 

(2) Shows the meaning , 150 

(3) Introduces new terms 150 

(4) The child applies them 150 

(5) He translates 150 

(6) He re-translates - 150 

(7) Compares with the original 151 

(8) Draws rules from the lesson 151 



Educational Methods. 185 

PACK 

The great feature is to learn a little well 153 

The teacher will aim at " Multum," not " Multa". . . 154 

Must aim at the majority of his pupils 155 

German Education of the Seventeenth Century 156 

Pestalozzi 157 

His want of learning 157 

Unable to govern 157 

Great mind-power 157 

Loved to teach 158 

Method of teaching „ . . . 160 

Begins with form 160 

Then number 161 

Then language 162 

His faults 164 

(1) Not self-teaching 164 

(2) Used names instead of objects 164 

(3) Used words and not things 165 

His principles a great inheritance 166 

Jacotot. 166 

His history 166 

His characteristics 167 

Was self-taught 168 

His method 168 

Aimed to excite and direct 169 

Origin of his method 170 

(1) Pupils laid in materials 170 

(2) He questioned them. .... , 171 

(3) They re-state 171 

(4) They compare 171 

Jacotot saw principles 172 

(1) Pupils learned by their own work 172 

(2) They taught themselves 172 

(3) He but supervised 172 

His precept. 173 

Application of Jacotot's method to teaching reading. 175 

(1) Teaches words 176 

(2) Reflects and analyzes 179 

(3) Re-combines 179 

In all the pupil does all 179 



PRINCIPLES OF THE SCIENCE 
OF EDUCATION. 



I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 

i. Every child is an organism, furnished by The child or- 
the Creator with inherent capabilities of action, /£«*** ac ~ 
and surrounded by material objects which serve as 
stimulants to action. 

2. The channels of communication between The sensory 
the external stimulants and the child's inherent S^w/aTaE 
capabilities of action are the sensory organs, by wor 
whose agency he receives impressions. 

3. These impressions, or sensations, being in- Sensations the 

, . •it elements 0/ 

capable or resolution into anything simpler than knowledge. 
themselves, are the fundamental elements of all 
knowledge. The development of the mind begins 
with the reception of sensations. 

4. The grouping of sensations forms percep- Sensations 

, . 1 . t • i 1 form 4>ercei>- 

tions, which are registered in the mmd as concep- tions. 
tions or ideas.* The development of the mind, 

* By "conception," or "idea," is meant the trace, 
residuum, or ideal substitute which represents the real 
perception. 



1 88 Principles of the Science of Education. 

which begins with the reception of sensations, is 
carried onward by the formation of ideas. 
Natural edu- r. The action and reaction between the external 

cation. 

stimulants and the mind's inherent powers, involv- 
ing processes of development * and implying 
growth, may be regarded as constituting a system 
of natural education. 
what is i7i- 6. A system of education implies — (i) an edu- 

volved in a sys- . n . \ 

tem o/ educa- catmg influence, or educator ; (2) a being to be 
educated, or learner ; (3) matter for the exercise 
of the learner's powers; (4) a method by which 
the action of these powers is elicited ; and (5) an 
end to be accomplished. 

The coefficients^ 7. In the case before us, the educating influence, 

means, and , - 

ends of natu- or educator, is God, represented by Nature, or 

ral education. , . it- t 1 i 

natural circumstances ; the being to be educated, 
or learner, a child ; the matter, the objects and 
phenomena of the external world ; the method, 
the processes by which this matter is brought into 
communication with the learner's mind ; and the 
object or end in view, intellectual development 
and growth. 

In view of the different agencies concerned in 
effecting this intellectual education, and of their 
mutual relation, we arrive at the following : 



* The term "development" is here employed for that 
unfolding of the natural powers of which " growth" is the 
registered result. 



Principles of the Science of Education. 189 



II. PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL EDUCATION. 

I. Nature, as an educator, recognizes through- The educator 

... learns from. 

out all his operations the inherent capabilities of the child how 

_,, . ^ii » 1 . to leach him. 

the learner. The laws of the learners being 
govern the educator's actions, and determine what 
he does, and what he leaves undone. He ascer- 
tains, as it were, from the child himself how to 
conduct his education. 

II. The natural educator is the prime mover The educator's 
and director of the action and exercise in which 

the learner's education consists. 

III. The natural educator moves the learner's Motives em- 

... . ployed by the 

mind to action by exciting his interest in the new, educator. The 

• r i j •• most influen- 

the wonderful, the beautiful ; and maintains this */«/, the satis- 
action through the pleasure felt by the learner in learner in 

. . . f ,. ., , gaining knowl- 

the simple exercise of his own powers — the pleas- *dge by him- 
ure of developing and growing by means of acts ** 
of observing, experimenting, discovering, invent- 
ing, performed by himself — of being his own 
teacher. 

IV. The natural educator limits himself to sup- The educator 

. . .. . . r 1 . ri purveys ma- 

plymg materials suitable for the exercise of the teriais, and 

, . . ,. stimulates the 

learners powers, stimulating these powers to ac- child's mind to 
tion, and maintaining their action. He co-oper- 7k°em. n 
ates with, but does not supersede, this action. 

V. The intellectual action and exercise in which what the child 

. . , . does himself 

the learner s education essentially consists are per- educates him. 
formed by himself alone. It is what he does him- 
self, not what is done for him, that educates him. 



190 Principles of the Science of Education, 



The child a 
learner who 
teaches him- 
self. 

The child 
learns by per- 
sonal experi- 
ence. 



The mind pro- 
ceeds from the 
concrete to the 
abstract. 



The mind pro- 
ceeds by the 
method of In- 
vestigation. 



The laws of 
intellectual ac- 
tion. 



Memory the 
result of at- 
tention. 



VI. The child is therefore a learner who edu- 
cates himself under the stimulus and direction of 
the natural educator. 

VII. The learner educates himself by his per- 
sonal experience ; that is, by the direct contact of 
his mind at first hand with the matter — object or 
fact — to be learned. 

VIII. The mind, in gaining knowledge for 
itself, proceeds from the concrete to the abstract, 
from particular facts to general facts, or prin- 
ciples ; and from principles to laws, rules, and 
definitions ; and not in the inverse order. 

IX. The mind, in gaining knowledge for itself, 
proceeds from the indefinite to the definite, from 
the compound to the simple, from complex ag- 
gregates to their component parts, from the com- 
ponent parts to their constituent elements — by the 
method of Investigation. It employs both Analy- 
sis and Synthesis in close connection. 

X. The learner's process of self-education is 
conditioned by certain laws of intellectual action. 
These are — (1) the Law of Consciousness; (2) of 
Attention, including that of Individuation, or 
singling out ; (3) of Relativity, including those of 
Discrimination and Similarity ; (4) of Retentive- 
ness, including those of Memory and Recollec- 
tion; (5) of Association, or Grouping; (6) of 
Reiteration, or Repetition, including that of Habit. 

XI. Memory is the result of attention, and at- 
tention is the concentration of all the powers of 



Principles of the Science of Education. 191 

the mind on the matter to be learned. The art of 
memory is the art of paying attention. 

XII. Ideas gained by personal experience are Processes of 

* r B mental elabo- 

subjected by the mind to certain processes of ration. 
elaboration ; as classification, abstraction, gener- 
alization, judgment, and reasoning. These pro- 
cesses imply the possession of ideas gained by per- 
sonal experience, and they are all performed by the 
youngest child who possesses ideas. 

XIII. The learner's knowledge consists in ideas, Knowledge con- 

. , 1 i_. szs * s zn ideas, 

gained from objects and facts by his own powers, not in words. 
and consciously possessed — not in words. The 
natural educator, by his action and influence, 
secures the learner's possession of clear and defi- 
nite primary ideas. Such ideas, so gained, are 
necessarily incorporated with the organic life of 
the learner's mind, and become a permanent part 
of his being. 

XIV. Words are the conventional signs, the Words without 

... . r . , 1 1 • 1 ideas are not 

objective representatives, of ideas, and their value knowledge to 
to the learner depends on his previous possession 
of the ideas they represent. The words without 
the ideas are not knowledge to him. 

XV. Personal experience is the condition of The growth of 
development, whether of the body, mind, or moral and' conscience 
sense. What the child does himself, and loves to self -education. 
do, forms his habits of doing; but the natural 

educator, by developing his powers and promot- 
ing their exercise, also guides him to the forma- 
tion of right habits. He therefore encourages 



192 Principles of the Science of Education. 



Definition of 
education. 



the physical development which makes the child 
healthy and robust, the intellectual development 
which makes him thoughtful and reasonable, and 
the moral development which makes him capable 
of appreciating the beautiful and the good. This 
threefold development of the child's powers tends 
to the formation of his bodily, mental, and moral 
character, and prepares him to recognize the 
claims of religion. 

XVI. Education as a whole consists of develop- 
ment and training, and may therefore be denned 
as "the cultivation of all the native powers of the 
child, by exercising them in accordance with the 
laws of his being with a view to development and 
growth. " 



These princi- 
ples constitute 
the Science of 
Natural Edu- 
cation. 



Natural Edu- 
cation the mod- 
el of Formal 
Education. 



The formal 
educator must 
therefore rec- 
ognize that in 
his practice. 



The above general facts or principles being the 
results of an analytical investigation into the nature 
of the child as a thinking being, and into the pro- 
cesses by which his earliest education is carried on, 
constitute the Science of Natural Education. 

But as it is the same mind which is to be culti- 
vated throughout, Natural Education is the pattern 
or model of Formal Education, and consequently 
the Science of Natural Education is the Science of 
Education in general. 

The formal educator or teacher, therefore, who 
professes to take up and continue the education 
begun by Nature, is to found his scheme of action 
upon the above principles, and in supplementing 



Principles of the Science of Education, 193 

and complementing the natural educator's work, he 
is to proceed on the same lines. He is not to in- 
trude modes of action which contravene and neu- 
tralize the principles of natural education. 






III. THE ART OF EDUCATION. 



i. Art is the application of the laws of Science Art the aj>pn- 

, . , . . cation of 

to a given subject under given circumstances. Science. 

2. The Art of Education, or Teaching, is the The Ari y 
explicit display of the implicit principles of the S^SSSSS 
Science of Education. of education. 

3. The principles already stated set the child or The child a 
pupil before us as one who gains knowledge for teaches him- 
himself, at first hand, by the exercise of his own 

native powers, through personal experience, and 
therefore as a learner who teaches himself. 

4. This is the central principle of the Art of This central 

principle a 

Teaching. It serves as a limit to define both the limit. 
functions of the formal teacher, and the nature of 
the matter on which the learner's powers are first 
to be exercised — that is, of the subject of instruc- 
tion. 

5. The limit which includes also excludes — it it limits or de- 

fines the func- 

proscnbes as well as prescribes. The teacher who Hon of the edu- 
regards the child as a learner who is to teach him- 
self through personal experience, is therefore inter- 
dicted from doing anything to interfere with the 
learner's own method, — from telling, cramming, 
explaining, and even from correcting,, merely on 
13 



i94 Principles of the Science of Education. 

his own authority, the learner's blunders. The 
function assigned him by the Science of Education 
is that of a stimulator, director, and superintend- 
ent of the learner's work, and to that office he is 
to confine himself. 
// also deter- 6. But the limit in question determines also the 

mines the na- ' ' -. 

ture of the character of the matter on which the learner s 

matter to be 

learnt. powers are to be first exercised. If he is to teach 

himself, he can only do so by exercising his mind 
on concrete objects or actions — on facts. These 
furnish him with ideas. He cannot teach himself 
by abstractions, rules, and definitions, packed up 
for him in words by others ; for these do not fur- 
nish him with ideas of his own. In all that he has 
to learn he must begin with facts — that is, with 
personal experience. It is clear, then, that the 
conception of the learner as a self-teacher deter- 
mines both the manner in which he is to be taught 
and the means. 

7. This notion of the Art of Teaching, which 

This principle ' . . . . °. 

applies _ to ail has specially in view the period of the child s life 
struction. when the formal teacher first takes him in hand, 

in order to develop and train his mind, is capable 
of general application. It applies therefore, with 
the requisite modifications, to instruction properly 
so called, which consists in the orderly and sys- 
tematic building of knowledge into the mind, with 
The teacher a definite object. 

educates by in- . 

structing, and 8. The teacher, therefore, educates by mstruct- 

instructs by .^ , , 

educating. mg, and instructs by educating. Education ana 



Principles of the Science of Education. 195 

instruction are different aspects of the same pro- 
cess. 

9. The sum of what has been laid down is, that 
the Art of Education consists in the practical ap- 
plication of principles gained by studying the 
nature of the child ; the central principle, which Central prind- 
governs all the rest, being that it is what the child 
does for and by himself that educates him. 



196 Principles of the Science of Education. 



PRINCIPLES OF THE SCIENCE OF EDUCA- 
TION. 

ANALYSIS. 

PAGE 

1. General Principles 187 

(1) The child organized for action 187 

(2) The sensory organs connect him with the 

world 187 

(3) Sensations the elements of knowledge 187 

(4) Sensations form perceptions 187 

(5) How Education is carried on 188 

(6) What is involved in a system of Education.. 188 

(7) God is the educating influence 188 

2. Principles of Natural Education 189 

(1) The educator learns from the child how to 

teach him 189 

(2) His real function 189 

(3) The motives to be used 189 

(4) The educator supplies the materials 189 

(5) The child educates himself 189 

(6) The child merely needs the direction of the 

teacher 190 

(7) He must have personal experience 190 ' 

(8) The mind goes from concrete to abstract 190 

(9) From the indefinite to the definite 190 

(10) It proceeds under the laws of mental action 190 

(11) Memory result of attention 190 

(12) Ideas gained or elaborated 191 

(13) Knowledge consists in ideas 191 



Principles of the Science of Education. 197 

PAGE 

(14) Words without ideas not knowledge 191 

(15) Personal experience is indispensable 191 

(16) Education attained when the powers are 

exercised in accordance with the laws of 

the being 192 

The Science of Natural Education 192 

Natural Education the pattern of Formal Educa- 
tion 192 

The teacher must recognize this 192 

The Art of Education 193 

(1) Art the application of Science 193 

(2) The Art of teaching founded on principles 

of Education 193 

(3) The child teaches himself 193 

(4) This power of self-teaching the central prin- 

ciple 193 

(5) It defines the function of the teacher 193 

(6) It also determines the matter to be put be- 

fore the learner 194 

(7) This principle applies to all educative in- 

struction 194 

(8) The teacher educates by instructing, and in- 

structs by educating 194 

(9) Principles must be gained by studying the 

child 195 



THEORIES OF TEACHING WITH 

THEIR CORRESPONDING 

PRACTICE.* 



Different There are, as we know, many methods of teach- 

teaching. ing. There are, for instance, Ascham's, Hamil- 

ton's, and Ollendorff method of teaching lan- 
guages, and Pestalozzi's and Jacotot's methods of 
teaching generally ; there are the methods of the [ 
old Grammar School, and those of the Dame 
Schools and of the Kindergarten, and a great many 
others. Each of these has a theory which under- 
lies it and accounts for its speciality. Into the 
details, however, of various methods I am not 
about to enter ; my purpose is the more general 
one of endeavoring to ascertain the leading spirit 
which pervades them all, independently, for the 
most part, of the details. 
cnsame °Jonc&- A little consideration of the subject will, I be- 
iionof teacher lieve, justify us in taking, as the criterion of this 
p*p* ■ spirit, the aspect under which we regard the re- 



* Read at a meeting of the Education Department of the 
Social Science Association, Monday, April 26, 1869. 



Theories of Teaching, 199 

lation of the teacher to the pupil, and of both to 
their joint work. One teacher may regard the 
communication of his own ideas to his pupil as 
his proper and special function, and their minds 
as a sort of tabula rasa, on which he has to write 
himself. According to this theory, he will then 
treat them merely as recipients, and will carefully 
tell them what they ought to receive, and how 
they ought to receive it. In placing facts before 
them, he will tell them what conclusions they are to 
draw from them. When his pupils commit faults 
he will correct them himself even though no use 
whatever is made of the corrections by them. He 
will be so careful that the pupil should not go 
wrong that he will continually interfere with his 
free action, by urging him to aim at this point and 
avoid that — in short, he will assume that the 
ability of the pupil to observe, compare, reason, 
think, depends almost entirely upon his own con- 
tinual telling, showing, explaining, and thinking 
for him. Such a teacher evidently has a mean Does not com- 

. . - , .,, , , prehend the 

opinion or the pupil s powers ; he assumes that pupiVs powers. 
they cannot work without the constant intervention 
of his own, and considers that in the joint opera- 
tion carried on by himself and his pupil he takes, 
and ought to take, the larger share. 

Another teacher entertains a very different view Another super- 
of the relation he sustains to his pupil. He sets "li'fielrning 
out, indeed, with a different estimate of the pupil's °- fthe * u * tL 
native ability, which he regards as competent to 



260 Theories of Teaching. 

observe facts, compare them together, and draw 
inferences respecting them without any authorita- 
tive interference on his part. He sees this native 
faculty at work in daily life, and therefore knows 
that it can be employed in self-instruction. He 
trusts in it, therefore, and never tells the pupil 
what he can find out for himself; he does not 
superfluously explain relations between objects or 
facts which explain themselves by the simple juxta- 
position of the objects and facts. He does not 
correct blunders which almost invariably arise 
either from insufficient knowledge or from care- 
lessness : in the one case he requires the pupil to 
gain the knowledge required, or leaves the blunder 
for subsequent correction ; in the other he de- 
mands more attention, and expects the pupil to 
Comprehends correct his own blunders. He feels no inordinate 

the pupil's . . . . ... . r- i 

powers. anxiety about his pupils occasional errors 01 judg- 

ment, provided that his mind is actively engaged 
in the subject under instruction ; in short, seeing 
that the child is pursuing, in a natural way, his 
own self-teaching, he is anxious not to supersede 
his efforts by any needless, and probably injurious, 
interference with the process. He judges, there- 
fore, that in the joint operation referred to it is the 
pupil and not himself who is to take the far larger 
share, inasmuch as the pupil's ultimate power of 
thinking will be in the inverse ratio of the teacher's 
thinking for him. 

It is evident that these different conceptions of 



Theories of Teaching, 201 

the relation between the teacher and the pupil are Results will 

.. -iii-i 11 11 var y with con 

not easily reconcilable with each other, and that ception. 

the practical results must be respectively very dif- 
ferent. These results I will not now endeavor to 
estimate, but address myself to my immediate pur- 
pose, which is to maintain the latter theory, and 
to show that learning is essentially self-tuition, and 
teaching the superintendence of the process ; and 
in short, that, compendiously stated, the essential 
function of the teacher consists in helping the 
pupil to teach himself. 

It may be worth while to inquire for a few Etymology 0/ 
minutes into the exact meaning, as fixed by etymo- 
logical considerations, of the words learn and 
teach. As words represent ideas, we may thus as- 
certain what conceptions were apparently intended 
to be represented by these or equivalent symbols. 
Now it does seem remarkable that, in European 
languages at least, to learn means to gather or 
glean for one's self — and teach, to guide or superin- 
tend. In no case that I am aware of do those 
words imply a correlation of receptivity on the one 
hand, with communicativeness on the other. A 
brief reference to the facts will be sufficient to show 
this. I take the word learn first, because learning 
must precede teaching. Learn, in the earliest form 
of our language, which we erroneously call Anglo- 
Saxon instead of Original or Primitive English, 
was leorn-ian, a derivative of the simpler form 
Icer-an, to teach. There is reason to believe that 



202 Theories of Teaching. 

the longer form with the epenthetic n represents a 
class of words once not uncommon in Gothic 
languages, though now no longer recognized in 
practice — I mean words endued in themselves with 
the functions of reflective or passive verbs. Thus, 
in Mceso-Gothic, we have lukan, to shut or lock 
up, lukn-an, to lock one's self up, or to be locked 
up ; zvak-an, to wake another, wakn-an, to wake 
one's self, to be awake. We have the corresponding 
awake and awaken ourselves. If this analogy be 
correct, then leorn-ian, as connected with Icer-an, 
to teach, means to teach one's self, i.e., to learn. 
As, however, the director of a work often gets the 
credit due to his subaltern, so the person who di- 
rected his pupil to do his work of teaching him- 
self was formerly said — and the usage still exists — 
to learn or lam the pupil. In nearly all European 
languages, this double force of the word is found. 
Three hundred years ago even it was unquestion- 
ably good English to say, as Cranmer does in his 
version of the Psalter — "Lead me forth in thy 
truth and learn me," and as Shakespeare does in 
the person of Caliban — "the red plague rid you 
for learning me your language." But what does 
the original root leer mean ? It is evidently equiv- 
lent to the Mceso-Gothic lais or les; s being inter- 
changeable with r, as we see in the Latin arbos, 
arbor, and in the German eisen, compared with 
our iron. But the Mceso-Gothic lais or les is 
identical with the German les or lesen, and means 



Theories of Teaching. 203 

to pluck, gather, acquis, read, learn, and we have 
still a trace of it in our provincial word leasing — 
gleaning or gathering up. The primitive meaning 
then of the root leer of our original English must 
have been the same as that ofthe Mceso-Gothic les, 
though, for reasons already referred to, the causa- 
tive sense to make to gather, acquire or learn, must 
have been very early superadded. On the whole, 
then, it appears sufficiently clear that to learn is to 
gather or glean for one's self — i. e. , to teach one's 
self. But the correlative teach also requires a mo- Etymology 0/ 
ment's consideration. This is derived from, or is 
equivalent to, the original English tcec or tcech (in 
tac-an or tcech-an), to the German zeig (in zeigen), 
to the Mceso-Gothic tech (in techan), to the Latin 
doc (in docere), or die in di{c)scere (of which the 
ordinary form is discere) and to the Greek deiK 
(in 6eiKYVf.11). This common root means to 
show, point out, direct, lead the way. The same 
idea is conveyed by the French equivalents montrer 
and enseigner, both meaning, as we know, to 
teach. 

The etymology, then, in both instances supports Etymology 
the theory that learning is gathering up or acquir- ^arning^is 
ing for one's self, and teaching the guiding, direct- f/^uacidng a 
ing, or superintending of that process. ^esf. tn& ^ r °~ 

The pupil, then, by this theory is to advance by 
his own efforts, to work for himself, to learn for 
himself, to think for himself; and the teacher's 
function is to consist mainly in earnest and sympa- 






204 Theories of Teaching. 

thizing direction. He is to devote his knowledge, 
intelligence, virtue, and experience to that object 
He has himself travelled the road before which he 
and his young companion are to travel together ; 
he knows its difficulties, and can sympathize with 
the struggles which must be made against them. 
He will therefore endeavor to gain his pupil's con- 
fidence, by entering into them, and by suggesting 
adequate motives for exertion when he sees the 
needful courage failing. He will encourage and 
animate every honest and manful effort of his 
pupil, but, remembering that he is to be a guide 
and not a bearer, he will not even attempt to 
supersede the labor and exercise which constitute 
the value of the discipline to the pupil, and which 
he cannot take upon himself without defeating the 
very end in view. 
what knowi- It is worth while here to meet a plausible ob- 

edge the teacher # ...."- 

needs. jection which has been taken against this view of 

the teacher's function. If, it is said, the pupil 
really after all learns by himself without the inter- 
vention of the teacher's mind in the process — 
though the intervention of his moral influence is 
strenuously insisted on — then this superintendent 
of other people's efforts to gain knowledge may 
really have none himself; this director of ma- 
chinery may know nothing of mechanics. This 
objection is pertinent and deserves attention. It 
is obvious that the teacher who is really able to 
enter into his pupil's difficulties in learning effec- 



Theories of Teaching. 205 

tively ought to be well furnished with knowledge 

and experience. Knowledge of the subject under Knowledge 

r ° J of the subject 

instruction is to be required of the teacher, both investigated. 
because the recognized possession of it gives him 
weight and influence, and because the possession 
of a large store of well-digested knowledge is itself 
distinct evidence that its owner has gone through 
a course of healthful mental discipline, and is on 
that ground — other things being equal — a fit and 
proper person to superintend those who are going 
through the same discipline. Knowledge also °^ f^l e £ff s ^ 
a special kind he ought to have — that derived from mind - 
thoughtful study, accompanied by practice, of the 
machinery which he is to direct. He is not, by 
the assumption, himself an essential part of it, but 
as an overlooker or engineer he certainly ought to 
be acquainted with its nature and construction, so 
as to be able to estimate its working power, and to 
know when to start and when to stop it, to pre- 
vent both inaction and overaction. A teacher^ 
then, without some knowledge of psychology, 
gained both systematically and by experience and 
observation, could hardly be considered as fully 
equipped for his work. But I need not dwell fur- 
ther on this point, though I could not well leave 
it unnoticed. 

It appears, then, that the teacher of a pupil 
who teaches himself will find quite enough to do 
in his work of superintendence and sympathy. 
It is only as far as the mental process of learn- 



2o6 



Theories of Teaching. 



The learner's 
method must 
be studied. 



The child be- 
gifts early to 
teach himself. 



ing that the pupil is in any sense independent of 
him. 

I do not profess to describe in philosophic terms 
what the mental process which we call learning 
really is, but it is necessary for my argument to 
maintain that, whatever it is, it can no more be per- 
formed by deputy than eating, drinking, or sleep- 
ing, and further, that every one engaged in per- 
forming it is really teaching himself. If, then, the 
views I have suggested of the relation between the 
teacher and the learner be generally correct, and 
the latter really learns by teaching himself, it would 
follow that if we could only ascertain his method 
as a learner, we should obtain the true elements of 
ours as teachers ; or, in -other words, that the true 
principles of the art of teaching would be educed 
from those involved in the art of learning, though 
the converse is by no means true. 

The establishment of these principles would fur- 
nish us with a test of the real value of some of the 
practices in current use amongst teachers, and per- 
haps help to lay the foundation of that teaching of 
the future, which will, as I believe, identify self- 
tuition, under competent guidance, with the scien- 
tific method of investigation. 

But I must endeavor to enlarge the field of in- 
quiry, and show that self-tuition under guidance is 
the only possible method in the acquirement of 
that elementary instruction which is the common 
property of the whole human race. Long before 



Theories of Teaching. 207 

the teacher, with his apparatus of books, maps, 
globes, diagrams, and lectures, appears in the 
field, the child has been pursuing his own educa- 
tion under the direction of a higher teacher than 
any of those who bear the technical name. He 
has been learning the facts and phenomena which 
stand for words and phrases in the great book of 
Nature, and has also learned some of the conven- 
tional signs by which those facts and phenomena 
are known in his mother-tongue. 

As my general proposition is that the art of 
teaching should be, as far as possible, founded on 
those processes by which Nature teaches those who 
have no other teacher — those who learn by them- 
selves — it is important to glance at a few of these 
processes. 

Nature's earliest lessons consist in teaching her His first 
pupils the use of their senses. The infant, on first ' 
opening his eyes, probably sees nothing. A glare 
of light stimulates the organ of sight, but makes 
no distinct impression upon it. In a short time, 
however, the light reflected from the various ob- 
jects around him impinges with more or less force 
upon the eye and impresses upon it the images of 
things without, the idea of the image is duly trans- 
ferred to the mind — and thus the first lesson in 
seeing is given. 

This idea of form is, however, complex in its Whole be/ore 

parts. 

character, which arises from the fact that the ob- 
jects presented to his attention are wholes or ag- 



208 Theories of Teaching, 

gregates. He learns to recognize them in the 
gross before he knows them in detail. He has no 
choice but to learn them in this way. No child 
ever did learn them in any other way. Nature 
presents him with material objects and facts, or 
things already made or done. She does not invite 
him, in the first instance, before he knows in a 
general way the whole object, to observe the con- 
stituent parts, nor the manner in which the parts 
are related to the whole. She never, in conde- 
scension to his weakness of perception, separates 
the aggregate in its component elements — never 
presents these elements to his consideration one by 
one. In short, she ignores altogether in her ear- 
liest lessons the synthetical method, and insists on 
his employing only the analytical. As a student 
of the analytical method he proceeds with his in- 
vestigations, observing resemblances and differ- 
ences, comparing, contrasting, and to some extent 
generalizing (and thus using the synthetical pro- 
cess), until the main distinctions of external forms 
are comprehended, and their more important parts 
recognized as distinct entitles, to be subsequently 
regarded themselves as wholes and decomposed 
into their constituent parts. Thus the child goes 
on with Nature as his teacher, learning to read for 
himself and by himself the volume she spreads out 
before him, mastering first some of its sentences, 
then its phrases and words, and, lastly, a few of its 
separate letters. 



Theories of Teaching. 209 

So with regard to the physical properties of ob- He experi- 
jects as distinguished from their mechanical divi- 
sions or parts. What teacher but Nature makes 
the child an embryo experimental philosopher? 
It is she who teaches him to teach himself the 
difference between hard and soft, bitter and sweet, 
hot and cold. He lays hold of objects within his 
reach, conveys them to his mouth, knocks them 
against the table or floor, and by performing such 
experiments incessantly gratifies, instructs, and 
trains the senses of sight, touch, taste, smelling, 
and hearing. At one time a bright and most at- 
tractive object is close at hand. It looks beautiful, 
and he wonders what it can be. Nature whispers, 
" Find out what it is. Touch it." He puts his 
fingers obediently into the flame, burns them, and 
thus makes an experiment, and gains at the same 
time an important experience in the art of living. 
He does not, however, feel quite certain that this 
may not be a special case of bad luck. He there- 
fore tries again, and of course with the same 
result. And now, reflecting maturely on what 
has taken place, he begins to assume that not 
only the flame already tried, but all flames will 
burn him — and thus dimly perceiving the relation 
between cause and effect, he is already tracking, 
though slowly and feebly, the footsteps of the in- 
ductive philosophy. Even earlier in life — as soon 
indeed, as he was born, as Professor Tyndall re- 
marks — urged by the necessity of doing something 
14 



Nature teaches. 



210 Theories of Teaching. 

for his living, he improvised a suction-pump, and 
thus showed himself to be, even from his birth, a 
student of practical science. 
He teaches These instances will serve to show that Nature's 

though we say earliest lessons are illustrations of the theory, that 
teaching essentially consists in aiding the pupil to 
teach himself. The child's method of learning is 
evidently self-tuition under guidance, and nothing 
else. He learns, i.e., gathers up, acquires, knows 
a vast number of facts relating to things about 
him ; and moreover, by imitation solely, he gains 
a practical acquaintance with the arts of walking, 
seeing, hearing, etc. Who has taught him ? 
Nature — himself — practically they are one. In 
the ordinary sense, indeed, of the word teaching, 
Nature has not taught him at all. She has given 
him no rules, no laws, no abstract principles, no 
formulae, no grammar of hearing, seeing, walking, 
or talking ; she simply gave the faculty, supplied 
the material, and the occasion for its exercise, and 
her pupil learnt to do by doing. This is what 
Nature, the teacher, the guide, the directrix, did. 
But something more she did, or rather in her wis- 
dom left undone. When her pupil, through care- 
lessness and heedlessness, failed to see what was 
before him, when he blundered in his walking or 
talking, she neither interposed to correct his 
blunders, nor indulged in outcries and objurga- 
tions against him. She bided her opportunity. 
She went on teaching, he went on learning, and 



Theories of Teaching. 211 

the blunders were in time corrected by the pupil 
himself. Even when he was about to burn his 
fingers, it was no part of her plan to hinder him 
from learning the valuable lessons taught by the 
ministry of pain. Perhaps in these respects, as 
well as in so many others, teachers of children 
might learn something from the example of their 
great Archididascalos. 

But it will be objected that Nature's wise, 
authoritative teaching can be no guide for us. She 
teaches by the law of exigency, and her pupil 
must perforce learn whether he will or not. In 
the society in which we live there is no such im- 
perative claim, and the teacher, who appears as 
Nature's deputy, can neither wield her authority 
nor adopt her methods. In reply to this objec- 
tion it may be urged that Society's claims upon 
her members are scarcely less imperative than 
Nature's, and that the deputy can, and ought to, 
act out his superior's principles of administra- 
tion. 

Suppose then, for instance, that Society requires violation of 
that a child should learn to read. In this case, od in teaching 

. - XT ,,. .to read. 

certainly, Nature will not intervene to secure that 
special instruction, but the method adopted by her 
deputy may be, and ought to be, founded on hers. 
Every principle of Nature's teaching is violated in 
the ordinary plan of commencing with the alpha- 
bet. Nature, as I have already said or implied, 
sets no alphabet whatever before her pupil ; nor is 



212 Theories of Teaching. 

there in the teaching of Nature anything that even 
suggests such a notion as learning A, B, C. 
Nature's teaching, it cannot be too frequently re- 
peated, is at first analytical, not synthetical, and 
the essence of it is that the pupil makes the analy- 
sis himself. 

Our ordinary teacher, however, in defiance of 
Nature, commences his instructions in the art of 
reading A, B, C, pointing out each letter, and at 
the same time uttering a sound which the child is 
expected to consider as the sound always to be as- 
sociated with that sign. At length, after many a 
groan, the alphabet is learned perfectly and the 
teacher proceeds to the combinations. He points 
to a word, and the pupil says, letter by letter, bee- 
a-tee, and then, naturally enough, comes to a dead 
stop. His work is done. Neither he nor Sir 
Isaac Newton in his prime could take the next 
expected step and compound these elements into 
bat. The sphinx who proposes the riddle may 
indeed look menacingly for the answer, but by no 
possible chance can she get it. The teacher then 
comes to the rescue, utters the sound bat, which 
the child duly repeats, and thus the second stage 
in reading is accomplished. 

It will be observed that the only rational and 
sensible feature in this process is the utterance and 
echo of the sound bat in view, of the word or sign, 
and if the teacher had begun with this, and not 
confused the child by giving him the notion that 



Theories of Teaching. 213 

he was learning a sound, when he was in fact 
learning but a name, Nature would have approved 
of the lesson, as analogous to those given by her- 
self. She might also have asked the teacher to 
notice that the child learns to speak by hearing 
and using whole words. Nobody addresses him 
as bee-a-bee-wy, nor does he say em-a-em-em-a. 
He, in fact, deals with aggregates, compares them 
together, exercises the analytical faculty upon 
them, and employs the constituent elements which 
he thus obtains in ever new combinations. There 
can be no doubt, then, that the child learns to 
speak by imitation, analysis, and practice. Why 
not, then, says Nature, let him learn reading in 
the same way ? Let him in view of entire words 
echo the sound of them received from the teacher ; 
let him learn them thoroughly as wholes, let him 
by analysis separate them into their syllables, and 
the syllables into their letters, and it will be found 
that the phonic faculty of the compound leads 
surely and easily to that of its separate parts. The 
fact that our orthography is singularly anomalous 
is an argument for, rather than against, the adop- 
tion of this plan of teaching to read. 

In pursuing this only natural method of instruc- Nature's wa 
tion we notice that the pupil frequently repeats 
the same process, going over and over the same 
ground until he has mastered it, and as in learning 
to walk he often stumbled before he walked freely, 
and in learning to talk often blundered and stam- 



2i4 Theories of Teaching, 

mered before he used his tongue readily, so while 
learning to read in Nature's school, he will make 
many a fruitless attempt, be often puzzled, often 
for a while miss his path, yet all the while he is 
correcting his errors by added knowledge and ex- 
perience, sharpening his faculties by practice, 
teaching himself by his own active efforts, and not 
receiving passively the explanations of others ; 
deeply interested too in discovering for himself 
that which he would be even disgusted with if im- 
posed upon by dogmatic authority, he is trained, 
even from the very beginning, in the method of 
investigation. I cannot but look upon him as illus- 
trating faithfully and fairly in his practice the 
theory that learning is self-tuition under compe- 
tent guidance, and that teaching is, or ought to 
be, the superintendence of the process. 
Followed by Did time permit I could give many illustrations 

Curwln. 71 of the interest excited, and the efficiency secured, 
by this method of teaching reading. For ex- 
ample, I have seen and heard children earnestly 
petitioning to be allowed to pursue their lessons 
in reading, after a short experience of it by what 
they called the ' ' finding-out plan. " It was known 
to me more than forty years ago, as a part of 
Jacotot's once renowned " Enseignement Univer- 
sel," and I then put it to the severest test It is 
also substantially contained in Mr. Curwen's 
''Look and Say Method," in the little book en- 
titled ' ' Reading without Spelling, or the Scholar's 



Theories of Teaching. 215 

Delight," and in articles by Mr. Dunning and Mr. 
Baker, of Doncaster, in the Quarterly Journal of 
Education for 1834. A natural method, like 
others, requires of course to be judiciously 
directed, and the teacher's especial duty is in this, 
as in other methods, to maintain the interest of 
the lesson, and above all, to get the pupil, how- 
ever young he may be, to think ; especially as, ac- 
cording to the principles already laid down, it is 
rather the pupil who learns than the master who 
teaches. As a case in point I quote a passage Lord Byron 
from the life of Lord Byron. Speaking of a different 
school he was in when five years of age, he says, 
"I learned little there except to repeat by rote the 
first lesson of monosyllables, ' God made man, let 
us love him, etc.,' by hearing it often repeated 
without acquiring a letter. Whenever proof was 
made of my progress at home, I repeated these 
words with the most rapid fluency, but on turn- 
ing over a new leaf I continued to repeat them, 
so that the narrow boundaries of my first year's 
accomplishments were detected, my ears boxed 
(which they did not deserve, seeing that it was by 
ear only that I had acquired my letters), and my 
intellects consigned to a new preceptor." This 
case, however, proves only that Byron had not 
been directed in teaching himself, and that he was 
not a pupil of the analytical method. His mind 
had taken no cognizance of the acquisitions which 
he had mechanically made, 



216 Theories of leaching. 

Another in- Another instance, much more to the point, is 

supplied in a passage which I extracted many years 
ago from a report of the Gaelic School Society, 
and which contains a most valuable lesson for the 
teachers of reading : "An elderly female in the 
parish of Edderton was most anxious to read the 
Scriptures in her native tongue. She did not even 
know the alphabet, and of course she began with 
the letters. Long and zealously she strove to ac- 
quire these, and finally succeeded. She was then 
put into the syllable class, in which she continued 
some time, but made so little progress that, with 
a breaking heart, she retired from the school. 
The clergyman of the parish, on being made ac- 
quainted with these circumstances, advised the 
teacher to send for her again, and instead of try- 
ing her with syllables, to which she could attach 
no meaning, to give her the sixth Psalm at once. 
This plan succeeded to admiration : and when the 
school was examined by a committee of presbytery, 
she read the thirty-seventh Psalm in a manner 
that astonished all present." Whether this impor- 
tant discovery — for it was nothing less — was made 
practically available in the teaching of the parish 
of Edderton I do not know ; but I should not be 
surprised to find that the good old A, B, C, and 
the cabalistical b-a, ba ; b-e, be, — in which Dr. 
Andrew Bell gravely tells us " the sound is an echo 
to the sense T — is still going on there as at the 
beginning. 



Theories of Teaching. 217 

I have detained you long over the practical il- Principles of 

- 1 • 1 • 1 j r 1 • se //-teaching 

lustration contained in this method of teaching to deduced. 
read, because it is really a complete application of 
the theory which I advocate, and involves such 
principles as these, which I state with the utmost 
brevity for want of time : 

1. The pupil, teaching himself, begins with 
tangible and concrete facts which he can compre- 
hend, not with abstract principles which he can- 
not. 

2. He employs a method — the analytical — which 
lies in his own power, not the synthetical, which 
mainly requires application ab extra. 

3. His early career is not therefore impeded by 
needless precepts and authoritative dogmas. 

4. He learns to become a discoverer and ex- 
plorer on his own account, and not merely a pas- 
sive recipient of the results of other people's dis- 
coveries. 

5. He takes a degree of pleasure in the dis- 
coveries or acquisitions made by himself, which 
he cannot take in those made by others. 

6. In teaching himself he proceeds — he can only 
proceed — in proportion to his strength, and is not 
perplexed and encumbered by explanations, which, 
however excellent in themselves, may not be 
adapted — generally are not adapted — to the actual 
state of his mind. 

7. He consequently proceeds from the known 
to the unknown. 



2i8 Theories of Teaching. 

8. The ideas that he thus gains will, as natural 
sequences of those already gained by the same 
method, be clear and precise as far as they go; his 
knowledge will be accurate, though of course very 
limited, because it is his own. 

9. By teaching himself, and relying on his own 
powers in a special case, he acquires the faculty of 
teaching himself generally — a faculty the value of 
which can hardly be overrated. 

If these principles are involved in the method of 
self-tuition they necessarily define the measure and 
limit of the teacher's function, and show us what 
Manifold ex- the art of teaching ought to be. They seem also 
derTslif -teach- to render it probable that much that goes under 
the name of teaching rather hinders than helps the 
self-teaching of the pupil. The assumption of 
the pupil's inability to learn except through the 
manifold explanations of the teacher is inconsis- 
tent with this theory, nor less so is the universal 
practice of making technical definitions, abstract 
principles, scientific rules, etc., form so large a 
portion of the pabulum of the youthful mind. 
The superintending teacher by no means, however, 
despises definitions, principles, and rules, but he 
introduces them when the pupil is prepared for 
them, and then he gets him to frame them for 
himself. The self-teaching student has no power 
to anticipate the time when these deductions from 
facts — for such they all ultimately are — will, by 
the natural course of mental development take 



wg. 



Theories of Teaching. 219 

their proper place in the course of instruction, and 
any attempt to force him to swallow them merely 
as intellectual boluses prematurely can only end 
in derangement of the digestive organs. His mind 
can digest, or at least begin to digest, facts which 
he sees for himself, but not definitions and rules 
which he has had no share in making. He can- 
not, in the nature of things, assume the conclu- 
sions of others drawn from facts of which he 
is ignorant as his conclusions, and he is not, 
therefore, really instructed by passively receiving 
them. 

Those who take a different view from this of So do defini- 

, . . , , , , , tions given on 

teaching sometimes plead that inasmuch as rules the plea 0/ 

, . . , , . . eco7io7ny of 

and principles are compendious expressions repre- time. 
senting many facts, the pupil does in learning 
them economize time and labor. Experience 
does not, however, support this view, but it is 
rather against it. The elementary pupil cannot, 
if he would, comprehend for instance the meta- 
physical distinctions and definitions of grammar. 
They are utterly un suited to his stage of develop- 
ment, and if violently intruded into his mind they 
cannot be assimilated to its substance, but must 
remain there as crude, undigested matter until the 
system is prepared for them. When that time 
arrives, he will welcome those compendious gen- 
eralizations of facts which when prematurely 
offered he rejected with disgust. Stuffing a pupil 
with ready-made rules and formulas may perhaps 



ers. 



220 Theories of Teaching, 

make an adept in cramming, but is cramming the 
be-all and end-all of education ? 
These are the But I must furl my sails and make for land. 

principles of 

all great teach The idea which I have endeavored to give of the 
true relation of the pupil to the teacher, and which 
represents the former as carrying on his own self- 
tuition under the wise superintendence of the 
latter, is of course not new. Nothing strictly new 
can be said about education. The elements of it 
may easily be found in the principles and practice 
of Ascham, Montaigne, Ratich, Milton, Comen- 
ius, Locke, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Jacotot, and 
Herbert Spencer. Those who are interested in 
the subject may find an account of the views and 
methods of these eminent men in Mr. Quick's 
valuable little book on Educational Reformers. 
All, in fact, who have insisted on the great im- 
portance of eliciting the pupil's own efforts, and 
not superseding, enfeebling, and deadening them 
by too much telling and explaining — all, too, who 
have urged that abstract rules and principles should, 
in teaching, follow, not precede, the examples on 
which they are founded, have virtually adopted the 
theory which I have endeavored to state and illus- 
trate. They have, in substance, admitted that the 
teacher's function is defined by a true conception 
of the mental operation which we call learning, 
and that that operation is radically and essentially 
the work of the pupil, and cannot be performed 
for him. 



Theories of Teaching. 221 

If I have succeeded at all in the development of Self-teaching 

makes the 

my theory, it must be obvious that a pupil thus most of the no- 

J tive powers. 

trained must be a more accurate observer, a more 
skilful investigator, more competent to deal with 
subjects of thought in an intelligent way ; in a 
word, a more awakened thinker, than one trained 
in accordance with the opposite theory. The pro- 
cess he goes through naturally tends to make him 
such, and to prepare him to appreciate and adopt 
in his subsequent career the methods of science. 
It is the want of that teaching which comes from 
himself that makes an ordinary pupil the slave of 
technicalities and routine, that prevents him from 
grappling with a common problem of arithmetic or 
algebra unless he happens to remember the rule, 
and from demonstrating a geometrical proposition 
if he forgets the diagram ; which, even though he 
may be a scholar of Eton or Harrow, leaves him 
destitute of power to deal at sight with a passage 
of an easy Greek or Latin author. In the great 
bulk of our teaching, with of course many and 
notable exceptions, the native powers of the 
pupil are not made the most of; and hence his 
knowledge, even on leaving school, is too gener- 
ally a farrago of facts only partially hatched into 
principles, mingled in unseemly jumble with rules 
scarcely at all understood, exceptions claiming 
equal rank with the rules, definitions dislocated 
from the objects they define, and technicalities 



222 Theories of Teaching. 

which clog rather than facilitate the operations of 
the mind. 
Reports show A slight exercise of our memories, and a slight 

our present ° 

methods unsat- glance at the actual state of things amongst us, will, 
I believe, witness to the substantial truth of this 
statement. If, however, we want other testimony, 
we may find it in abundance in the Reports and 
evidence of the four Commissions which have in- 
vestigated the state of education amongst us ; if 
we want more still, we may be supplied — not, I 
am sorry to say, to our heart's content, but dis- 
content — in the reports of intelligent official ob- 
servers from abroad. If we want more still, let us 
read the petitions only lately presented to the 
House of Commons from the highest medical au- 
thorities, who complain that medical education is 
rendered abortive and impossible by the wholly 
unsatisfactory results of middle-class teaching. 
Does it appear unreasonable to suppose that such 
a chorus of dispraise and dissatisfaction could not 
be raised unless there were something in the 
methods of teaching which naturally leads to the 
results complained of? If the quality of the teach- 
ing — I am not considering the quantity — is not 
responsible for the quality of its results, I really do 
not know where we are to find the cause, and fail- 
ing in detecting the cause, how are we to begin 
The remedy is even our search for the remedy ? Theories of 
%fture. c t0 teaching which distrust the pupil's native ability, 
which in one way or other repress, instead of aid- 



Theories of Teaching, 223 

ing, the natural development of his mind, which 
surfeit him with technicalities, which impregnate 
him with vague infructuous notions that are never 
brought to the birth, that cultivate the lowest fac- 
ulties at the expense of the highest, that make him 
a slave of the Rule-of-Thumb instead of a master 
of principles — are these theories, which have done 
much of the mischief, to be still relied on to supply 
the reform we need ? Or shall we find, at least, 
some of the germs of future life in the other 
theory, which from the first confides in, cherishes, 
and encourages the native powers of the child, 
which takes care that his acquisitions, however 
small, shall be made by himself, and secures their 
possession by repetition and natural association, 
which invests his career with the vivid interest 
which belongs to that of a discoverer and explorer 
of unknown lands, — which, in short, to adopt the 
striking words of Burke, instead of serving up to 
him barren and lifeless truths, leads him to the 
stock on which they grew, which sets him on the 
track of invention, and directs him into those 
paths in which the great authorities he follows made 
their own discoveries ? Is a theory which involves 
such principles, and leads to such results, worth 
the consideration of those who regard education 
as pre-eminently the civilizing agent of the world, 
and lament that England, as a nation, is so little 
fraught with its spirit ? 



224 Theories of Teaching, 



THEORIES OF TEACHING WITH THEIR 
CORRESPONDING PRACTICE. 

ANALYSIS. 

PAGE 

Different methods of teaching 198 

Each founded on some conception of the relation of 

teacher and pupil 198 

One fails to comprehend the pupil's powers 199 

Another superintends the self-teaching of the pupil.. 199 
Results will vary with the conception the teacher 

starts with 201 

Etymology of ' ' learn" 201 

" teach" 203 

The etymology shows that learning is self-teaching, 

and teaching a guiding process 203 

What knowledge the teacher needs 204 

(1) Knowledge of the subject investigated 205 

(2) Knowledge of the pupil's mind 205 

(3) The learner's method must be studied 206 

The child begins early to teach himself 206 

(1) His first efforts 207 

(2) Whole before parts 207 

(3) He experiments 209 

In all cases he teaches himself, though we say 

Nature teaches 210 

Violation of Nature's method in teaching to read. . . 211 

Nature's way 213 

This is Jacotot's and Curwen's way 214 

Not the way Lord Byron was taught 215 

Another instance 216 



Theories of Teaching. 22$ 



PAGE 



Principles of self-teaching 217 

(1) The pupil begins with the concrete. 217 

(2) Employs analysis 217 

(3) Does not learn rules 217 

(4) Becomes a discoverer 217 

(5) Enjoys his discoveries 217 

(6) Needs no explanation 217 

(7) Goes from the known to the unknown 217 

(8) His ideas are clear. 218 

(9) He acquires the faculty of self-teaching , 218 

Manifold explanation hinders self-teaching 218 

So do definitions 219 

The principles stated are those employed by all great 

teachers 220 

Self-teaching makes the most of the learner's powers 221 
Reports show our present system is unsatisfactory.. 222 
The remedy is to go back to Nature. . . . , 222 



THE IMPORTANCE OF THE TRAIN- 
ING OF THE TEACHER. 



In the first place, I wish to make a few re- Teaching not 
marks on the term "profession," as applied to «■£»."" 
teaching. It cannot be said, strictly, that we have 
in England, at this moment, any profession of 
teaching. The term " profession" when properly, 
that is, technically employed, connotes or implies 
" learned ;" and involves the idea of an incorpo- 
rated union of persons qualified by attainments 
and by a scientific training for a particular calling 
in life, and duly authorized to pursue it. It is in 
this sense alone that the term is employed, in speak- 
ing of the professions of law, medicine and the- 
ology. As, however, in the case of education — No positive at- 

, , . . % i j. i i • tainments de- 

and speaking particularly of secondary education manded. 
— no positive attainments, no special training, no 
authoritative credentials whatever are demanded as 
professional qualifications, it is obvious that there 
is, strictly, speaking, no profession of teaching 
amongst us, and that when we use the term " pro- 
fession" in this application of it, we use it in a 
vague, inaccurate, and untechnical sense. As to 
attainments none whatever are required of the per- 



228 The Training of the Teacher. 

son who "professes" to teach. The profound 
ignoramus, if sufficiently endowed with assurance, 
may compete for public patronage on nearly equal 
terms with the most cultivated student of learning 
and science, and may in many cases even carry off 

Nor training, the prize. While as to training, the teacher who 
has severely disciplined his mind by the study of the 
theory of education, and carefully conformed his 
practice to it, scarcely stands a better chance of 
success than the ignorant pretender who cannot 
even define the term "education;" who has no 
conception of the meaning of "training;" and 
whose empirical, self-devised methods of instruc- 
tion constitute the sum -total of his qualifications 
for the office he assumes. 

Nor creden- Lastly, as to credentials, both classes of teachers, 

Hals. 

the qualified and the unqualified, stand on pre- 
cisely the same footing before the public. No 
authoritative exequatur distinguishes the competent 
from the incompetent teacher. Both jostle each 
other in the strife for pre-eminence, and the public 
look on all the while with indifference, apparently 
unconscious that their children's dearest interests 
are involved in the issue. It is obvious then, that 
as neither knowledge, training, nor credentials are 
required of a teacher, there can be no " profession 
of teaching. " 
injurious that The assumption, however, that there is such a 
alfowe/to are profession, and that any one who pleases may 
claim to be a member of it, has proved very in- 



Tlie Training of the Teacher, 229 

jurious to the interests of the public. Girls left 
unprovided for, young widows left in a similar 
predicament, and many others suddenly plunged 
into difficulties and obliged to cast about for a 
livelihood, often can think of no other employ- 
ment than that of teaching, which, as being in 
common parlance "professional," is therefore 
"genteel," and accordingly, without a single 
qualification, often with the disqualification that 
they have nearly all their previous lives regarded 
teachers and teaching with contempt, declare them- 
selves before the world ready to teach. The dec- 
laration, if it means anything, means that they 
profess themselves ready to undertake the practice 
of an art which, beyond most others, requires pe- 
culiar knowledge, experience, culture, and tact. 
It means further, that they are prepared to watch 
over the development of a child's growing mind, 
to furnish it with suitable mental food at the proper 
time ; to see that the food is thoroughly digested ; 
to stimulate it to exercise its faculties in the right 
direction ; to curb its aberrations ; to elicit the con- 
sciousness of independent power; to form, in 
short, habits of thinking for life-long use. All 
this, and very much more, is really involved in the 
conception we ought to form of a teacher's func- 
tions ; and yet we see every day persons who have 
not even a conception of this conception : persons 
destitute of all knowledge of the subjects they pro- 
fess to teach, of the nature of the mind which is 



230 The Training of the Teacher, 

to be taught, of the practical art itself, of the prin- 
ciples of education which underlie the art, and of 
the experience of the most eminent instructors, 
blindly and rashly forcing themselves before the 
world as teachers. Such persons seem not to be 
aware that if with similar qualifications they were 
to undertake to practise the arts of medicine, law, 
architecture, engineering, or music, they would be 
laughed at everywhere. Yet these very persons, 
who would be instinctively conscious of their in- 
competency, without knowledge or training, to 
perform a surgical operation, to steer a vessel, to 
build a house, or to guide a locomotive, are ready, 
at a moment's warning, to perform any number of 
operations on a child's mind, and to undertake the 
direction of its mental or moral forces — a task, 
considering the delicacy of the machinery with 
which they have to deal, more difficult in many 
respects than any other that can be named. 
a study of the In maintaining, however, generally that the pro- 
sdence of fessor of an art should understand its principles, 

Education zvill ■,'-,■, -, -, -, • 1 , 

benefit the and that he cannot understand them without study 

most gifted. , . . T , . . 

and training, I do not mean to assert that there 
may not be found among those who feel them- 
selves suddenly called upon to act as teachers, 
especially among women, many who, without ob- 
vious preliminary training, are really already far 
advanced in actual training for the task they as- 
sume. In these cases, superior mental culture, 
acute insight into character, ready tact and earnest 



The Training of the Teacher. 231 

sympathy constitute, pro tanto, a real preparation 
for the profession ; and supply, to a considerable 
extent, the want of technical training. To such 
persons it not unfrequently happens that a matured 
consciousness of the importance of the task they 
have undertaken, and actual contact with the work 
itself, rapidly suggest what is needed to supplement 
their inexperience. Such cases, however, as being 
rare and exceptional, are not to be relied on as ex- 
amples. Even in them, moreover, a thoughtful 
study of the Science of Education, and of the cor- 
related Art, would guide the presumed faculty to 
better results than can be gained without it. 

We can have little hesitation then in asserting To teach with 
that the pretension to be able to teach without ery. 
knowing even what teaching means ; without mas- 
tering its processes and methods as an art ; with- 
out gaining some acquaintance with its doctrines 
as a science ; without studying what has been said 
and done by its most eminent practitioners, is an 
unwarrantable pretension which is so near akin to 
empiricism and quackery,* that it is difficult to 
make the distinction. 

There are, however, two or three fallacious argu- 
ments sometimes urged against the preliminary 
training of the teacher which it is important briefly 
to discuss. 

* " Empiric: one of a sect of ancient physicians, who 
practised from experience, not from theory." — " Quack: a 
boastful pretender to arts he does not understand." 



23 2 7be Training of the Teacher. 



The teacher 
function. 



it is needed The first is, that ''granting the need of such 

for primary " *•* 

teaching. training for teachers of advanced subjects, it is 

unnecessary for the teaching of elementary sub- 
jects. Anybody can teach a child to read, write, 
and cipher." This is no doubt true, if teaching 
means nothing more than mechanical drill and 
cram ; but if teaching is an art and requires to be 
artistically conducted, it is not true. A teacher is 
one who, having carefully studied the nature of 
the mind, and learned by reading and practice 
some of the means by which that nature may be 
influenced, applies the resources of his art to the 
child-nature before him. Knowing that in this 
nature there are forces, moral and intellectual, on 
the development of which the child's well-being 
depends, he draws them forth by repeated acts, 
exercises them in order to strengthen them, trains 
them into faculty, and continually aims at making 
all that he does, all that he gets his pupil to do, 
minister to the consciousness of growth and power 
in the child's mind. If this is a correct descrip- 
tion of the teacher's function, it is obvious that it 
applies to every department of the teacher's work ; 
as much to the teaching of reading and arithmetic 
as to that of Greek plays, or the Differential Cal- 
culus. The function does not change with the 
subject. But I go further, and maintain that the 

ihe'Ar si' stages, beginning of the process of education is even more 
important in some respects than the later stages. 
77 n'y a que le premier pas qui coute. The teacher 



Skill especial 
ly needed i 



The Training of the Teacher. 233 

who takes in hand the instruction and direction of 
a mind which has never been taught before com- 
mences a scries of processes, which by our theory 
should have a definite end in view — and that end 
is to induce in the child's mind the consciousness 
of power. Power is, of course, a relative term, 
but it is not inapplicable to the case before us. 
The teacher, even of reading, who first directs the 
child's own observation on the facts in view — the 
combinations of the letters in separate words or 
syllables — gets him to compare these combinations 
together, and notice in what respect they differ or 
agree, to state himself the difference or agreement 
— to analyze each new compound into its known 
and unknown elements, applying the known, as 
far as possible, to interpret the unknown — to refer 
each fresh acquisition to that first made, to 
find out for himself everything which can be 
found out through observation, inference, and re- 
flection — to look for no help, except in matters 
(such as the sounds) which are purely conventional 
— to teach himself to read, in short, by the exer- 
cise of his own mind — such a teacher, it is con- 
tended, while getting the child to learn how to 
read, is, in fact, doing much more than this — he is 
teaching the child how to use his mind — how to 
observe, investigate, think.* It will probably be 



*See Educational Methods, pp. 175-180. 



234 The Training of the Teacher. 

granted that a process of this kind — if practicable 
— would be a valuable initiation for the child in 
the art of learning generally, and that it would 
necessarily be attended by what I have described as 
skii/ui teach- a consciousness of power. But, moreover, — which 

ing imparts , . . . , , ,, 

pleasure. is also very important — it would be attended by a 

consciousness of pleasure. Even the youngest 
child is sensible of the charm of doing things him- 
self — of finding out things for himself; and it is 
of cardinal importance in elementary instruction 
to lay the grounds for the association of pleasure 
with mental activity. It would not be difficult, 
but it is unnecessary, to contrast such a method 
as this, which awakens all the powers of the child's 
mind, keeps them in vivid and pleasurable exer- 
cise, and forms good mental habits, with that too 
often pursued, which deadens the faculties, in- 
duces idle habits, distaste for learning, and inca-. 
pacity for mental exertion. 

It is clear, then, that "any teacher" cannot 
teach even reading, so as to make it a mental ex- 
ercise, and consequently a part, of real education 
— in other words, so as " to make all that he does, 
and all he gets his pupil to do, minister to the con^ 
sciousness of growth and power in the child's 

in Germany mind.'' So far then from agreeing with the propo- 

men of ability .. . . T , ,.' , ? , , , 

teach young sition in question, 1 believe that the early develop- 
ment of a child's mind is a work that can only 
effectually be performed by an accomplished 
teacher ; such a one as I have already described. 



The Training of the Teacher. 235 

In some of the best German elementary schools 
men of literary distinction, Doctors in Philosophy, 
are employed in teaching children how to read, 
and in the highly organized Jesuit schools it was 
a regulation that only those teachers who had been 
specially successful in the higher classes should be 
entrusted with the care of the lowest. 

There is moreover, another consideration which The child's 

... ,. . education is 

deserves to be kept in view in discussing the com- not begun at 
petency of" any teacher" to take charge of a child 
who is beginning to learn. Most young untrained 
teachers fancy when they give their first lesson to 
a child who has not been taught before, that they 
are commencing its education. A moment's re- 
flection will show that this is not the case. They 
may indeed be commencing its formal education, 
but they forget that it has been long a pupil of that 
great School of which Nature is the mistress, and 
that their proper function is to continue the educa- 
tion which is already far advanced. In that School, The primary 

teacher but 

observation and experiment, acting as superin- continues Na- 

, ~ ture" 1 s teaching. 

tendents of instruction, through the agency of the 
child's own senses, have taught it all it knows at 
the time when natural is superseded, or rather 
supplemented, by formal education. Can it then 
be a matter of indifference whether or not the 
teacher understands the processes, and enters into 
the spirit of the teaching carried on at that former 
School ; and is it not certain that his want of 
knowledge on these points will prove very injuri- 



236 The Training of the Teacher, 

ous to the young learner ? The teacher who has 
this knowledge will bring it into active exercise in 
every lesson that he gives, and, as I have shown in 
the case of teaching to read, will make it instru- 
mental in the development of all the intellectual 
faculties of the child. He knows that his method 
is sound, because it is based on Nature ; and he 
knows, moreover, that it is better than Nature's, 
because it supersedes desultory and fortuitous ac- 
tion by that which is organized with a view to a 
ignorance of definite end. The teacher who knows nothing of 

Nature's meth- 

od fatal. Natures method, and fails, therefore, to appre- 

ciate its spirit, devises at haphazard a method of 
his own which too generally has nothing in com- 
mon with it, and succeeds in effectually quench- 
ing the child's own active energies ; in making 
him a passive recipient of knowledge which he has 
had no share in gaining ; and in finally converting 
him into a mere unintellectual machine. Un- 
trained teachers, especially those who, as the 
phrase is, ' ' commence" the education of children, 
are, as yet, little aware how much of the dulness, 
stupidity, and distaste for learning which they 
complain of in their pupils is of their own crea- 
tion. The upshot then of this discussion is, not 
that ' ' any teacher, " but only those teachers who 
are trained in the art of teaching, can be safely en- 
trusted with the education of the child's earliest 
efforts in the career of instruction. 

Another fallacy, which it is important to expose, 



TJje Training of the Teacher. 237 
is involved in the assumption, not un frequently a "fancy" 

... , ,, . , , for teaching is 

met with, that a mans "choosing to tancy that no warrant. 
he has the ability to teach is a sufficient warrant 
for his doing so," leaving, it is added, "the pub- 
lic to judge whether or not he is lit for his profes- 
sion." Ridiculous as this proposition may appear, 
I have heard it gravely argued for and approved 
in a conference of teachers, many of whom, no 
doubt, had good grounds of their own for their 
adherence to it. Simply stated, it is the theory 
of free trade in education. Every one is to be at 
liberty to offer his wares, and it is the buyer's 
business to take care that he is not cheated in the 
bargain. It is unnecessary for my present purpose 
to say more on the general proposition than this 
— that the state of the market and the frequent in- 
feriority of the wares invalidate the assumption of 
the competency of the buyer to form a correct es- 
timate of the value of the article he buys, and, 
moreover, that an immense quantity of mischief 
may be, and actually is, done to the parties most 
concerned, the children of the buyers, while the 
hazardous experiment is going on. As to the No one is a 

, , ,, , . surgeon, etc., 

minor proposition, that a mans "choosing to because he 
fancy that he has the ability" to teach is a sufficient 
warrant for his doing so, it is obviously in direct 
opposition to the argument I am maintaining. It 
cannot for a moment be admitted that a man's 
"choosing to fancy that he has the ability" to dis- 
charge a function constitutes a sufficient warrant 



238 The Training of the Teacher. 

for the indulgence of his fancy, especially in a field 
of action where the dearest interests of society are 
at stake. We do not allow a man " who chooses 
to fancy that he has the ability" to practise surg- 
ery, to operate on our limbs at his pleasure, and 
only after scores of disastrous experiments decide 
whether he is " fit to follow the profession" of a 
surgeon. Nor do we allow a man who may 
"choose to fancy that he has the ability" to take 
the command of a man-of-war, to undertake such 
a charge on the mere assurance that we may safely 
trust to his " inward impulse." And if we require 
the strictest guarantees of competency, where our 
lives and property are risked, shall we be less 
anxious to secure them when the mental and moral 
lives of our children — the children of our com- 
monwealth — are endangered? I repudiate then 
entirely this doctrine of an "inward impulse," 
which is to supersede the orderly training of the 
teacher in the art of teaching. It has been tried 
long enough, and has been found utterly wanting. 
Fallacies, however, are often singularly tenacious 
of life, and we are not therefore surprised at Mr. 
Meiklejohn's assertion, that in more than 50 per 
cent of the letters which he examined, the special 
qualification put forward by the candidates was 
their "feeling" that they could perform the duties 
of the office in question to their own satisfaction '(!) 
This is obviously only another specimen, though 
certainly a remarkable ont, of the "inward im- 
pulse" theory. 



The Training of the Teacher. 239 
The third fallacy I propose to deal with is it " « fallacy 

to suppose that 

couched in the common assumption that " any one one who knows 

rr-ii a subject can 

who knows a subject can teach it. 1 here can teach it. 
be no doubt that the teacher should have an ac- 
curate knowledge of the subject he professes to 
teach, and especially for this, if for no other 
reason — that as his proper function is to guide the 
process by which his pupil is to learn, it will be of 
the greatest advantage to him as a guide to have 
gone himself through the process of learning. But, 
then, it is very possible that although his experi- 
ence has been real and personal, it may not have 
been conscious — that is, that he may have been 
too much absorbed in the process itself to take ac- 
count of the natural laws of its operation. This 
conscious knowledge of the method by which the 
mind gains ideas is, in fact, a branch of Psychol- 
ogy, and he may not have studied that science. 
Nor was it necessary for his purpose, as a learner, 
that he should study it. But the conditions are The teacher 
quite altered when he becomes a teacher. Henow Lrwa^T 
assumes the direction of a process which is essen- t° sltlon - 
, tially not his but the learner's ; for it is obvious 
that he can no more think for the pupil than he 
can eat or sleep for him. His efficient direction, 
then, will mainly depend on his thoughtful, con- 
scious knowledge of all the conditions of the 
problem which he has to solve. That problem 
consists in getting his pupil to learn, and it is evi- 
dent that he may know his subject, without know- 



240 The Training of the Teacher. 

ing the best means of making his pupil know it 
too, which is the assumed end of all his teaching : 
in other words, he may be an adept in his subject, 
but a novice in the art of teaching it. Natural 
tact and insight may, in many cases, rapidly sug- 
gest the faculty that is needed ; but the position 
still remains unaffected that knowing a subject is 
a very different thing from knowing how to teach 
it. This conclusion is indeed involved in the very 
conception of an art of teaching, an art which has 
principles, laws, and processes peculiar to itself. 
Profound stu- But, again, a man profoundly acquainted with 

dents lack in . . . . . , „ 

sympathy. a subject may be unapt to teach it by reason of 
the very height and extent of his knowledge. His 
mind habitually dwells among the mountains, and 
he has therefore small sympathy with the toilsome 
plodders on the plains below. It is so long since 
he was a learner himself that he forgets the diffi- 
culties and perplexities which once obstructed his 
path, and which are so painfully felt by those who 
are still in the condition in which he once was 
himself. It is a hard task, therefore, to him to 
condescend to their condition, to place himself 
alongside of them, and to force a sympathy which 
he cannot naturally feel with their trials and ex- 
perience. The teacher, in this case, even less than 
in the other, is not likely to conceive justly of all 
that is involved in the art of teaching, or to give 
himself the trouble of acquiring it. Be this, how- 
ever, as it may, both illustrations of the case show 



The Training of the Teacher, 241 

that it is a fallacy to assert that there is any neces- 
sary connection between knowing a subject, and 
knowing how to teach it. 

Having now shown that the present state of Teaching as it 

, ,. . . • x- , 1 1 • 1 • " contrasted 

public opinion in JLngland, which permits any with teaching 

,, . . . as it should l*e. 

one who pleases to set up as a teacher without 
regard to qualifications, is inconsistent with the 
notion that teaching is an art for the exercise of 
which preliminary training is necessary, and dis- 
posed of those prevalent fallacies which are, to a 
great extent, constituents of that public opinion, I 
proceed to give some illustrations of teaching as 
it is, in contrast with teaching as it should be. The 
fundamental proposition, to which all that I have 
to say on the point in question must be referred, 
is this — that teaching, in the proper sense of the 
term, is a branch of education, and that education 
is the development and training of the faculties 
with a view to create in the pupil's mind a con- 
sciousness of power. Every process employed in Much so-called 
what is called teaching that will not bear this test crammutg. 
is, more or less, of the essence of cramming, and 
cramming is a direct interference with, and an- 
tagonistic to, the true end of education. Cramming 
may be denned for our present purpose as the di- 
dactic imposition on the child's mind of ready-made 
results, of results gained by the thought of other 
people ; through processes in which his mind has 
not been called upon to take a part. During this 
performance the mind of the pupil is for the most 
16 



242 Tloe Training of the Teacher. 

part a passive recipient of the matter forced into 
it, and the only faculty actively employed is mem- 
ory. The result is that memory, instead of being 
occupied in its proper function of retaining the 
impression left on the mind by its own active 
operations, and being therefore subordinate and 
subsequent to those operations, is forced into a 
position to which it has no natural right, and 
made to precede, instead of waiting on, the mind's 
action. Thus the true sequence of causes and 
consequences is disturbed, and memory becomes 
a principal agent in instruction. If we further re- 
flect that ideas gained by the direct action of the 
mind naturally find their proper place among the 
other ideas already existing there by the law of as- 
sociation, while those arbitrarily forced into it do 
so only by accident — for the mind receives only 
that which it is already prepared to receive — we 
see that cramming, which takes no account of 
preparedness, is absolutely opposed to develop- 
ment, that is, to education in the true sense of the 
term. Cramming, therefore, has nothing in com- 
mon with the art of teaching, and the great didac- 
tic truth is established that it is the manner or 
method, rather than the thing taught, that consti- 
tutes the real value of the teaching. 
Thompson on Mr. D'Arcy Thompson, in his interesting book 

cramming: . , , TTT . . _, , ,, r , 

entitled "Wayside 1 noughts, referring to the 
usual process of cramming in education, compares 
it to the deglutition by the boa constrictor of a 



The Training of the Teacher. 243 

whole goat at a meal, but he remarks that while 
the boa by degrees absorbs the animal into his 
system, the human boa often goes about all his 
life with the undigested goat in his stomach ! 
There may be some extravagance in this whimsi- 
cal illustration, but it involves, after all, a very 
serious truth. How many men and women are 
there who, if they do not carry the entire goat with 
them throughout life, retain in an undigested con- 
dition huge fragments of it, which press as a dead 
weight on the system — a source of torpidity and 
uneasiness, instead of becoming through proper 
assimilation a means of energy and power. 

The true educator, who is at the same time a How the true 

, , . , ... teacher t>ro- 

genuine artist, proceeds to his work on principles ceeds. 
diametrically opposed to those involved in cram- 
ming. In the first place he endeavors to form a 1. Form a just 

r , . 1 1 r conception. 

just conception of the nature, aims, and ends 01 
education, as of a theory which is to govern his 
professional action. According to this conception 
"education is the training carried on consciously 
and continuously by the educator with the view of 
converting desultory and accidental force into or- 
ganized action, and of ultimately making the child 
operated on by it a healthy, intelligent, moral, 
and religious man." Confining himself to intel- 
lectual training, he sees that this must be accom- 
plished through instruction, which is ' ' the orderly 
placing of knowledge in the mind with a definite 
object ; the mere aggregation of incoherent ideas, 



2. He studies 
the means. 



3. He studies 
Psychology. 



244 The Training of the Teacher. 

gained by desultory and unconnected mental acts 
being no more instruction than heaping bricks and 
stone together is building a house." * These con- 
ceptions of the nature and aim of education, and 
of its proper relation to instruction, suggest to him 
the consideration of the means to be employed. 
These means to be effectual must have an exact 
scientific relation to the nature of the machinery 
that is to be set in motion ; a relation which can 
be understood by a careful study of the machinery 
itself. If it is a sort of machinery which manifests 
its energies in acts of observation, perception, reflec- 
tion, and remembering, and depends for its efficacy 
upon attention, he must study these phenomena 
subjectively in relation to his own conscious ex- 
perience, and objectively as exhibited in the ex- 
perience of others. Regarding, further, this 
plexus of energies as connected with a base to 
which we give the name of mind, he must pro- 
ceed to study the nature of the mind in general, 
and especially note the manner in which it actsjn 
the acquisition of ideas. This study will bring him 
into acquaintance with certain principles or laws 
which are to guide and control his future action. 
The knowledge thus gained will constitute hi? 
initiation into the Science and Art of Education. 
The Science or Theory of Education then is 



* See the Author's 
of Education." 



Lectures on the Science and Art 



The Training of the Teacher. 245 

seen to consist in a knowledge of those principles 
of Psychology, which account for the processes by 
which the mind gains knowledge. It therefore P r ^tice not in 

° ° accord with 

serves as a test, by which the Art or Practice of principles must 

' J be condemned. 

Education may be tried. All practices which are 
not in accordance with the natural action of the 
mind in acquiring knowledge for itself are con- 
demned by the theory of Education, and in this 
predicament is cramming, which consists in forc- 
ing into the mind of the learner the products of 
other people's thought. Such products are for- 
mulas, rules, abstract general propositions, defini- 
tions, classifications, technical terms, common 
words even, when they are not the signs of ideas 
gained at first-hand by his own observation and 
perception. The Science of Education recognizes 
all these kinds of knowledge as necessary to the 
formation of the mind ; but relegates them to their 
own proper place in the course of instruction, and 
determines that that place is subsequent, not antece- 
dent, to the action of the learner's mind on the 
facts which serve as their groundwork. Facts Scientific 

. , . . . . . teachers pre- 

then, things, material objects, natural phenomena ; sent facts— not 
physical facts, facts of language, facts of nature 
are the true, the all-sufficient pabulum for the 
youthful mind, and the careful study and investi- 
gation of them at first-hand, though his own ob- 
servation and experiment are to constitute his ear- 
liest initiation in the art of learning. After this 
initiatory practice, which involves analysis and 



246 The Training of the Teacher. 



The teacher 
iv ho crams is 
an artisan. 



The teacher 
who works in 
accordance 
with science is 
an artist. 



disintegration, come, as the natural sequence, the 
processes of reconstruction and classification of 
the elements obtained, induction, framing of defi- 
nitions, building up of rules, generalization of par- 
ticulars, construction of formulae, application of 
technical terms, in all which processes the art of 
the teacher as a director of the learner's intellectual 
efforts is manifestly called into exercise ; and the 
need of his own experimental knowledge of the 
processes he has to direct is too obvious to require 
to be insisted on. 

The comprehensive principle here enunciated, 
which regards even the learning by rote of the 
multiplication table and Latin declensions, ante- 
cedently to some preliminary dealing with the facts 
of Latin and the facts of number, as of the essence 
of cramming, will be theoretically received or re- 
jected by teachers just in proportion as they receive 
or reject the conception of an art of teaching 
founded on intellectual principles. It is obvious 
enough that cramming knowledge into the mem- 
ory, without regard to its fitness for mental diges- 
tion, if an art at all, is an art of a very low order, 
and has little in common with that which consists 
in a conscious appreciation of the means whereby 
the mind is awakened to activity, and its energies 
trained to independent power. The teacher, in 
fact, in the one case is an artist, scientifically work- 
ing out his design in accordance with the princi- 
ples of his art, and ready to apply all its resources 



The Training of the Teacher. 247 

to the emergencies of practice ; in the other case, 
he is an artisan empirically working by rule-of- 
thumb, unfurnished with principles of action, and 
succeeding, when he succeeds at all, through the 
happy accident that the pupil's own intellectual 
activity practically defeats the natural tendency of 
the teacher's mechanical drill. 

I do not, however, by any means pretend to 
assert that every teacher who declines to accept 
this notion of teaching as an art is an artisan. It 
often happens that a man works on a theory which 
he does not consciously appreciate, and in his 
actual practice obviates the objection which might 
be taken against some of his processes. Hence 
we find teachers, while denouncing such expres- 
sions as " development and cultivation of the in- 
telligence" as " frothy," * doing practically all they 
can to develop and cultivate the intelligence of 
their pupils. Such teachers do indeed violently 
drive " the goat" into the stomach of their pupils, 
but when they have got it there take great pains to 
have it digested in some fashion or other. I believe 
that the process would be much facilitated by their 
knowing something of the physiology of digestion, 
but I do not therefore designate such practitioners 
as artisans. At the same time I do not call them 



* See a letter in the " Educational Times," for Decem- 
ber, 1872, from the Rev. E. Boden, Head Master of the 
CHtheroe Royal Grammar School, 



248 The Training of the Teacher. 

artists, for their procedure violates nature, and 
true art never does that. The epithet artisan may, 
however, be restricted to those — and their number 
is legion — whose practice consists of cramming 
pur et simple. 
The really sue- On the whole, then, I contend that if we could 
proceed on examine the entire practice of those teachers who 
ties. nci ~ actually succeed in endowing the large majority — 
not a select few — of their pupils with sound and 
systematic knowledge, and with well-formed 
minds, we should find that, whatever be their 
theoretic notions, they have worked on the prin- 
ciples on which I have been all along insisting. 
They have succeeded by the development and cul- 
tivation of the intelligence of their pupils, and by 
nothing else, and they have succeeded just in pro- 
portion as they have consciously kept this object 
in view. Let us hear what Dean Stanley tells us 
of Arnold's teaching: ''Arnold's whole method 
was founded on the principle of awakening the in- 
telligence of every individual boy. Hence it was 
his practice to teach, not, as you perceive, by 
downpouring, but by questioning. As a general 
rule he never gave information except as a reward 
for an answer, and often withheld it altogether, or 
checked himself in the very act of uttering it, from 
a sense that those whom he was addressing had 
not sufficient interest or sympathy to entitle them 
to receive it. His explanations were as short as 
possible, enough to dispose of the difficulty and 



The Training of the Teacher. 249 

no more, and his questions were of a kind to call 
the attention of the boys to the real point of every 
subject, to disclose to them the exact boundaries 
of what they knew and did not know, and to cul- 
tivate a habit not only of collecting facts, but of 
expressing themselves with facility, and of under- 
standing the principles on which these facts rested. " 
Such was Arnold's method of teaching ; and it is 
obvious that, mutatis mutandis, modified somewhat 
so as to apply to the earliest elementary instruc- 
tion, it involves all the principles which I have 
contended for, as constituting the true art of teach- 
ing. The boys were, in fact, teaching themselves 
under the direction of the teacher without, or with 
the slightest, explanation on his part. They were 
using all their minds on the subject, and gaining 
independent power. Arnold, to use a famous 
French teacher's expression, was "laboring to 
render himself useless. " 

But I must draw these remarks to a conclusion. 
It is hardly necessary for me to state formally the 
principles for which I have been all along arguing. 

The upshot is this — Teaching is not a blind 
routine but an art, which has a definite end in 
view. An art implies an artist who works by sys- 
tematic rules. The processes and rules of art ex- 
plicitly or implicitly evolve the principles involved 
in science. The art or practice of education, 
therefore, is founded on the science or theory of 
education, while the science of education is itself 



2 $6 The Training of the Teacher, 

founded on the science of mind or psychology* 
The complete equipment and training of the teacher 
for his profession comprehends, therefore : 

(a) A knowledge of the subject of instruction. 

(&) A knowledge of the nature of the being to 
be instructed. 

(c) A knowledge of the best methods of in- 
struction. 

This knowledge gained by careful study, and 
conjoined with practice, constitutes the training of 
the teacher. 



The Training of the Teacher. 251 



IMPORTANCE OF THE TRAINING OF THE 
TEACHER. 

ANALYSIS. 

PAGE 

Teaching not yet a profession 227 

No positive attainments demanded 227 

Nor training 227 

Nor credentials , 227 

Injurious that any or all are allowed to teach 228 

A study of the Art and Science of Education will 

benefit the most gifted 230 

To teach without such study is quackery 231 

It is needed for primary teaching 232 

The teacher's function 232 

Skill needed in the first stages most especially 232 

Skilful teaching imparts pleasure 234 

In Germany young men of ability teach young chil- 
dren 234 

The child's education is not begun at school 235 

The primary teacher but continues Nature's teach- 
ing 235 

Ignorance of Nature's method is fatal 236 

A fancy for teaching is no warrant 237 

No one is a surgeon because he takes a fancy 237 

It is a fallacy to suppose that one who knows a sub- 
ject can teach it 239 

The teacher must know the learner's position 239 

Profound students lack in sympathy ." . 240 



252 The Training of the Teacher. 

PAGE 

Teaching as it is contrasted with teaching as it should 

be 241 

Much so-called teaching is cramming 241 

D'Arcy Thompson on Cramming 242 

How the true teacher proceeds. . „ 243 

(1) He forms a just conception of Education. . .. 243 

(2) He studies the means 244 

(3) He studies Psychology 244 

Practices not in accord with educational principles 

must be condemned 245 

Scientific teachers present facts, not rules 245 

The teacher who crams is an artisan 246 

He who works in accord with science is an artist.. . 246 
The really successful teachers proceed on educa- 
tional principles 248 

Arnold cited 249 



THE TRUE FOUNDATION OF 
SCIENCE-TEACHING. 



It is almost a truism to say, that the foundation 
of a building is its most important feature. If 
the foundation be either insecure in itself, or laid 
without regard to the plan of the superstructure, 
the building, as a whole, will be found wanting 
both in unity and strength. A building is in fact 
the embodiment and realization of an idea con- 
ceived in the mind of the architect, and if he is 
competent for his post, and can secure the need- 
ful co-operation, the practical expression will sym- 
metrically correspond to the conception. But 
unless the foundation is solidly laid, and all the 
parts of the building are constructed with relation 
to it, his aesthetic and theoretic skill will go for 
little or nothing. His work is doomed to failure 
from the beginning, and the extent of the failure 
will be proportionate to the ambition of the design. 
These remarks are applicable to the art of building 
generally, whether shown in large and imposing 
structures or in the meanest cottages. In no case 
can the essential elements of unity and strength 
be dispensed with. 



254 True Foundation of Science-Teaching. 

In these preliminary observations I have fore- 
shadowed the subject with which I have to deal — 
that of Science-teaching — whether carried on under 
the direction of a Science and Art Department, or 
in the smallest class of a private school ; and my 
purpose is to ascertain how far the ideal of theory 
is realized in the general practice. 
Demand for Whatever might have been said of the neglect of 

Science-teach- . . . . 

ing. what is called ' ' science in former times, we can- 

not make the same complaint now. A ringing 
chorus of voices may be heard vociferously de- 
manding science for the children of primary, 
secondary, and public schools ; for the universi- 
ties ; in short, for all classes of society. ' ' Science, " 
it is said, ' ' is the grand desideratum of our age, 
the true mark of our civilization. We want 
science to supply a mental discipline unfurnished 
by the old-established curriculum ; we want it as 
the basis of the technical instruction of our work- 
men. " 

In answer to this universal demand we see 
something called Science-teaching finding its way 
into primary, and even into public, schools, in 
spite of the declaration of an eminent head-master, 
not longer back than 1863, that, instruction in 
physical science, in the way in which it could be 
given in Winchester School, was ' ' worthless ;" 
that ' ' a scientific fact was a fact which produced 
nothing in a boy's mind ;" and that this kind of 
instruction ' ' gave no power whatever, " We fur- 



True Foundation of Science-Teaching. 255 

ther see this something, called Science, stimulated 
by grants and prizes, through the vast machinery 
of the Science and Art Department ; and lastly we 
have, at this moment, a Royal Commission of 
eminent scientific men, taking evidence and fur- 
nishing Reports on ''Scientific instruction and 
the advancement of Science." Who, after this, 
will be bold enough to say that Science is not 
looking up in the knowledge-market ? 

But amidst all the clamor of voices demanding Science not well 

° taught. 

instruction in Science, we listen in vain for the 
authoritative voice — the voice of the master artist 
— which shall define for us the aims and ends of 
Science, and lay down the laws of that teaching 
by which they are to be effectively secured. As 
things go, every teacher is left to frame his own 
theory of Science-teaching, and his own empirical 
method of carrying it out ; and the result is, to 
apply our illustration, that the fabric of Science- 
teaching now rising before us rests upon no recog- 
nized and established foundation, exhibits no 
principle of harmonious design, and that its vari- 
ous stages have scarcely any relation to each other, 
and least of all to any solidly compacted ground- 
plan. 

The first question for consideration is, "What Science is or- 

ganized knowl- 

is meant by Science ? The shortest answer that edge. 
can be given is, that "Science is organized knowl- 
edge." This is, however, too general for our 
present purpose, which is to deal with Physical 



256 True Foundation of Science-Teaching, 

Science. In a somewhat developed form, then, phy- 
sical science is an organized knowledge of mate- 
rial, concrete, objective facts or phenomena. The 
term "organized," it will be seen, is the essence 
of the definition, inasmuch as it connotes or im- 
plies that certain objective relations subsisting in 
the nature of things, between facts or phenomena, 
are subjectively appreciated by the mind — that is, 
that Science differs from mere knowledge by being 
a knowledge both of facts, and of their relations 
to each other. The mere random, haphazard ac- 
cumulation of facts, then, is not Science ; but the 
perception and conception of their natural rela- 
tions to each other, the comprehension of these 
relations under general laws, and the organization 
of facts and laws into one body, the parts of which 
are seen to be subservient to each other, is 
Science. 
Knowledge is Returning to the other factor of the definition, 

of two kinds. " 

"Knowledge, we observe that there are two 
kinds of knowledge — (1) what we know through 
our own experience, and (2) what we know through 
the experience of others. Thus, I know my own 
knowledge that I have an audience before me, 
and I know through the knowledge of others that 
the earth is 25,000 miles in circumference. This 
latter fact, however, I know in a sense different 
from that in which I know the former. The one 
is a part of my experience, of my very being. The 
other I can only be strictly said to know when I 



True Foundation of Science-Teaching. 257 

have, by an effort of the mind, passed through the 
connected chain of facts and reasonings on which 
the demonstration is founded. Thus only can it 
become my knowledge in the true sense of the 
term. 

Strictly speaking, then, organized knowledge, or we can only 
Science, is originally based on unorganized knowl- Zf^nc/'h" ° 
edge, and is the outcome of the learner's own ob- *** Uld ' 
servation of facts through the exercise of his own 
senses, and his own reflection upon what he has 
observed. This knowledge, ultimately organized 
into Science through the operation of his mind, he 
may with just right call his own ; and, as a 
learner, he can properly call no other knowledge 
his own. What is reported to us by another is 
that other's, if gained at first-hand by experience ; 
but it stands on a different footing from that which 
we have gained by our own experience. He 
merely hands it over to us ; but when we receive 
it, its condition is already changed. It wants the 
brightness, definiteness, and certainty in our eyes, 
which it had in his ; and, moreover, it is merely a 
loan, and not our property. The fact, for in- 
stance, about the earth's circumference was to him 
a living fact ; it sprang into being as the outcome 
of experiments and reasonings, with the entire 
chain of which it was seen by him to be intimately 
— indeed indissolubly and organically connected. 
To us it is a dead fact, severed from its connec- 
tion with the body of truth, and, by our hypothe- 
17 



258 True Foundation of Science-Teaching. 

sis, having no organic relation to the living truths 
we have gained by our own minds. These are 
convertible into our Science ; that is not. 

What I insist on then is, that the knowledge 
from experience — that which is gained by bringing 
our own minds into direct contact with, matter — is 
the only knowledge that as novices in science we 
have to do with. The dogmatic knowledge im- 
posed on us by authority, though not originally 
gained by the same means, is, really, not ours, 
but another's — is, as far as we are concerned, 
unorganizable ; and therefore, though Scknce 
to its proprietor, is not Science to us. To us 
it is merely information, or haphazard knowl- 
edge. 

The conclusions, then, at which we arrive, are 
— (1) That the true foundation of physical 
Science lies in the knowledge of physical facts 
gained at first-hand by observation and experi- 
ment, to be made by the learner himself; (2) that 
all knowledge not thus gained is, pro tanto, unor- 
ganizable, and not suited to his actual condition ; 
and (3) that his facts become organized into 
Science by the operation of his own mind upon 
them. 

Having given some idea of what is meant by 
Science, and how it grows up in the mind of the 
learner, I turn now to the teacher, and briefly in- 
quire what is his function in the process o* 
Science-teaching ? 



True Foundation of Science-Teaching. 259 
I have elsewhere* endeavored to expound the Function of 

, r , , , . , , the teacher in 

correlation of learning and teaching, and to show Science-teach- 
that the natural process of investigation by which 
the unassisted student — unassisted, that is, by 
book or teacher — would seek, as a first discoverer, 
to gain an accurate knowledge of facts and their 
interpretation, suggests to us both the nature and 
scope of the teacher's, and especially the Science- 
teacher's, functions. According to this view of 
the subject, the learner's method, and the teacher's, 
serve as a mutual limit to each other. The learner He must su- 

,. . , . . J perintend the 

is a discoverer or investigator engaged in mterro- p u pu white he 
gating the concrete matter before him, with a view investigates. 
to ascertain its nature and properties • and the 
teacher is a superintendent or director of the 
learner's process, (1) pointing out the problem to 
be solved, (2) concentrating the learner's attention 
upon it, (3) varying the points of view, suggest- 
ing experiments, inquiring what they result in ; 
(4) converting even errors and mistakes into means 
of increased power, (5) bringing back the old to 
interpret the new, the known to interpret the un- 
known, (6) requiring an exact record of results 
arrived at — in short, exercising all the powers of 
the learner's mind upon the matter in hand, in 



* See a Lecture entitled "Theories of Teaching with 
the Corresponding Practice," delivered April 26, 1869, at 
the Rooms of the Association for the Promotion of Social 
Science. 



260 True Foundation of Science-Teaching. 



The teacher 
ntust consider 
the process by 
which the pu- 
pil learns. 



Science must be 
taught to form 
the mind — not 
to cram it. 



order to make him an accurate observer and ex- 
perimenter, and to train him in the method of in- 
vestigation. 

The teacher, then, is to be governed in his teach- 
ing, not by independent notions of his own, but by 
considerations inherent in the natural process by 
which the pupil learns. He is not, therefore, at 
liberty to ignore this natural process, which essen- 
tially involves the observation, experiment, and 
reflection of the pupil ; nor to supersede it by in- 
truding the results of the observation, experiment, 
and reflection of others. He is, on the contrary, 
bound to recognize these operations of his pupil's 
mind as the true foundation of the Science-teaching 
which he professes to carry out. In other words, 
the process of the learner is the true foundation of 
that of the teacher. 

This sketch would be sufficient were it merely 
my object to present a theory. But as I am seri- 
ously in earnest, and wish to see the claims of 
Science vindicated, and the teaching of its facts, 
principles, and laws placed on a totally different 
ground from that which it now generally occupies, 
I must pursue the subject further. 

It will have been observed, that I lay great 
stress on teaching Science in such a way that it 
shall become a real training of the student in the 
method of Science, with a view to the forming of 
the scientific mind. 

According to the usual methods of Science-teach- 



True Foundation of Science-Teaching. 261 

ing, it is quite possible for a student to "get up," 
by cramming, a number of books on scientific 
subjects, to attend lecture after lecture on the same 
subjects, to be drenched with endless explanations 
and comments on descriptions of experiments per- 
formed by others, to lodge in his memory the 
technical results of investigations in which he has 
taken no part himself, together with formulae, 
rules, and definitions ad infinitum ; and yet, after 
all, never to have even caught a glimpse of the 
idea involved in investigation, or to have been for 
a moment animated by the spirit of the scientific 
explorer. That spirit is a spirit of power, which, 
not content with the achievements gained by 
others, seeks to make conquests of his own, and 
therefore examines, explores, discovers, and in- 
vents for itself. These are the manifestations of 
the spirit of investigation, and that spirit may be 
excited by the true Science-teacher in the heart of 
a little child. I mav refer, for proof of this asser- This is the 

way of Prof. 

tion, to the teaching of botany to poor village Hmsiow and 
children by the late Professor Henslow; to the 
teaching of general Science by the late Dean 
Dawes to a similar class of children ; to that pur- 
sued at the present time at the Bristol Trade 
School ; and to the invaluable lessons given to 
the imaginary Harry and Lucy by Miss Edge- 
worth. Without warranting every process 
adopted by these eminently successful teach- 
ers, some of whom were perhaps a little too much 



262 True Foundation of Science-Teaching. 

addicted to explaining, I have no hesitation in 
declaring that they one and all acted mainly on 
the principle that true Science-teaching consists in 
bringing the pupil's mind into direct contact with 
facts — in getting him to investigate, discover, and 
invent for himself. The same method is recom- 
mended in Miss Youman's philosophical essay 
"On the Culture of the Observing Powers of 
Children,"* and rigorously applied in her "First 
Lessons on Botany ;'' and in the Supplement to 
that little volume I have given, as its editor, a 
typical lesson on the pile-driving engine, which il- 
lustrates the following principles : 

1. That the pupils, throughout the lesson, are 
learning — i.e., teaching themselves, by the exer- 
cise of their own minds, without, and not by, the 
explanations of the teacher. 

2. That the pupils gain their knowledge from 
the object itself, not from a description of the 
object furnished by another. 

3. That the observations and experiments are 
their own observations and experiments, made by 
their own senses and by their own hands, as in- 
vestigators seeking to ascertain for themselves 
what the object before them is, and what it is ca- 
pable of doing. 

* ' ' An Essay on the Culture of the Observing Powers 
of Children, especially in connection with the Study of 
Botany." By Eliza A. Voumans, of New York, with 
Notes and a Supplement by Joseph Payne- 



True Foundation of Science-Teaching. 263 

4. That the teacher recognizes his proper func 
tion as that of a guide or director of the pupil' 
process of self-teaching, which he aids by moral 
means, but does not supersede by the intervention 
of his own knowledge. 

These hints all tend to show what is really meant 
by Science-teaching, as generally distinguished 
from other teaching. 

In case, however, my competency to give an Pro/. Huxley 
opinion on Science-teaching should be questioned, 
I beg to enforce my views by the authority of Pro- 
fessor Huxley, who, in a lecture on "Scientific 
Education," thus expresses himself: " If scientific 
training is to yield its most eminent results, it 
must be made practical — that is to say, in explain- 
ing to a child the general phenomena of nature, 
you must, as far as possible, give reality to your 
teaching by object-lessons. In teaching him 
botany, he must handle the plants and dissect the 
flowers for himself ; in teaching him physics and 
chemistry, you must not be solicitous to fill him 
with information, but you must be careful that 
what he learns he knows of his own knowledge. 
Do not be satisfied with telling him that a magnet 
attracts iron. Let him see that it does ; let him 
feel the pull of the one upon the other for him- 
self. . . . Pursue this discipline carefully and con- 
scientiously, and you may make sure that, how- 
ever scanty may be the measure of information 
which you have poured into the boy's mind, you 



264 True Foundation of Science-Teaching. 

have created an intellectual habit of priceless value 
in practical life." 

Again, in the same lecture, the Professor says : 
"If the great benefits of scientific training are 
sought, it is essential that such training should 
be real — that is to say, that the mind of the 
scholar should be brought into direct relation 
with fact ; that he should not merely be told 
a thing, but made to see, by the use of his own 
intellect and ability, that the thing is so, and not 
otherwise. The great peculiarity of scientific 
training — that in virtue of which it cannot be re- 
placed by any other discipline whatever — is this 
bringing of the mind directly into contact with 
fact, and practising the mind in the completest 
form of induction — that is to say, in drawing con- 
clusions from particular facts made known by im- 
mediate observation of Nature. " 
Mr. Wilson To the same effect another eminent Science- 

teacher, Mr. Wilson, of Rugby School, thus ex- 
presses himself. "Theory and experience," he 
says, " alike convince me that the master who is 
teaching a class quite unfamiliar with scientific 
method, ought to make his class teach themselves, 
by thinking out the subject of the lecture with 
them, taking up their suggestions and illustra- 
tions, criticising them, hunting them down, and 
proving a suggestion barren or an illustration in- 
apt ; starting them on a fresh scent when they are 
at fault, reminding them of some familiar fact 



True Foundation of Science-Teaching. 265 

they had overlooked, and so eliciting out of the 
chaos of vague notions that are afloat on the 
matter in hand, be it the laws of motion, thG 
evaporation of water, or the origin of the drift, 
something of order, concatenation, and interest, 
before the key to the mystery is given, even if, at 
"all, it has to be given. Training to think, not to 
be a mechanic or a surveyor, must be first and 
foremost as his object. So valuable are the sub- 
jects intrinsically, and such excellent models do 
they provide, that the most stupid and didactic 
teaching will not be useless ; but it will not be 
the same source of power that the method of in- 
vestigation will be in the hands of a good mas- 
ter." 

My last quotation will be from the very valuable Dr. Kemshead 
lecture given here by Dr. Kemshead, the able quote ' 
Science-teacher of Dulwich College, on "The Im- 
portance of Physical Science as a branch of Eng- 
lish General Education." Referring to education 
generally, he says, — and I entirely agree with him, 
— "I wish it particularly to be borne in mind 
that, whenever I use the word education, I use it 
in its highest and truest sense of training and de- 
veloping the mind. I hold the acquisition of 
mere useful knowledge, however important and 
valuable it may be, to be entirely secondary and 
subsidiary. I consider it to be of more value to 
teach the young mind to think out one original 
problem, to draw one correct conclusion for itself, 



266 True Foundation of Science-Teaching. 

than to have acquired the whole of 'Hangnail's 
Questions' or ' Brewer's Guide to Science.' " 

There speaks the true teacher. But what does 
he say on Science-teaching ? This : "I wish par- 
ticularly to draw the distinction between mere 
scientific knowledge and scientific training. I do 
not believe in the former ; I do believe in the 
latter. In physical and experimental science, 
studied for the sake of training, the mode of teach- 
ing is everything. I know of one school [we shall 
soon see that there are many such] in which phys- 
ical science is made a strong point in the pro- 
spectus, where chemistry is taught by reading a 
text-book (a very antiquated one, since it only 
gives forty-five elements), but in which the experi- 
ments are learnt by heart, and never seen practi- 
cally. Such a proceeding is a mere farce on 
Science." But Dr. Kemshead proceeds, — "Of 
course, as mere useful knowledge, Lardner's hand- 
books, or any other good text-books, might be 
committed to memory. So long as the facts are 
correct, and are put in a manner that the pupil 
can receive them, the end is gained ; but this is 
not scientific teaching — cramming if you like, but 
not teaching. It will I am sure, be manifest to 
you all that there is nothing of scientific training 
in this. To develop scientific habits of thought — 
the scientific mind, the teaching must be of a 
totally different nature. In order to get the full- 
est benefit from a scientific education, the teacher 



True Foundation of Science-Teaching. 267 

should endeavor to bring his pupil face to face 
with the great problems of Nature, as though he 
were the first discoverer. He should encourage 
him from the first to record accurately all his ex- 
periments, the object he had in view in making 
them, the results even when they have failed, and 
the inferences which he draws in each case, with 
as much rigor and exactitude as though they 
were to be published in the ' Philosophical Trans- 
actions. ' He should, in fact, teach his pupil to 
face the great problems of Nature as though they 
had never been solved before. " 

"To face the great problems of Nature as 
though they had never been solved before" — "to 
bring the child face to face with the great problems 
of Nature, as though he were the first discoverer" 
— these weighty, pregnant, and luminous expres- 
sions contain the essence of the whole question I 
have endeavored to set before you. They define, 
as you easily perceive, the attitude of the pupil in 
regard to his subjective process of learning, and 
the function of the teacher in regard to his objec- 
tive process of teaching — the one being the coun- 
terpart of the other. 

It will have been noticed, perhaps, that nothing The best books 
has been said of text-books, which some consider a / * Nature* 
as "the true foundation of Science-teaching." 
The reason of this omission lies in the nature of 
things. The books of a true student of physical 
Science are the associated facts and phenomena of 



268 True Foundation of Science-Teaching. 



Objections to 
text-books — (i) 
they contain 
the experi- 
ments of 
others. 



(2) The conclu- 
sion of the 
•writer comes 
first. 



Nature. He finds them in " the running brooks," 
the mountains, trees, and rocks ; wherever, in 
short, he is brought face to face with facts and 
phenomena ; these are the pages whose sentences, 
phrases, words, and letters he is to decipher and 
interpret by his own investigation. 

The intervention of a text-book, so called, be- 
tween the student and the matter he is to study, is 
an impertinence. For what is such a text-book ? 
A compendium of observations and experiments 
made by others in view of that very nature-book 
which, by the hypothesis, he is to study at first- 
hand for himself, and of definitions, rules, gen- 
eralizations, and classifications which he is, 
through the active powers of his mind, to make 
for himself. The student's own method of study 
is the true method of Science. He is being grad- 
ually initiated in the processes by which both 
knowledge, truly his own, and the power of gain- 
ing more, are secured. Why should we supersede 
and neutralize his energies, and altogether disor- 
ganize his plan by requiring him to receive on au- 
thority the results of other people's labors in the 
same field ? Again, a text-book on Science is a 
logically-constructed treatise, in which the propo- 
sitions last arrived at by the author are presented 
first — in the reverse order to that followed by the 
method of Science. The sufficient test of the use 
of books in Science-teaching is, in fact, this : Do 
they train the mind to scientific method ? If they 



True Foundation of Science-Teaching. 269 

do not — if, on the contrary, they discountenance 
that method, — then they are to be rejected in that 
elementary work — the foundation of Science-teach- 
ing — with which alone we are here concerned. 
Once more, I appeal to Prof. Huxley, who tells us Prof. Huxley 
that, "If Scientific education is to be dealt with as qu ° e ' 
mere book-work, it will be better not to attempt 
it, but to stick to the Latin Grammar, which makes 
no pretence to be anything but book-work." 
Again, in his Lecture to Teachers, — "But let me 
entreat you to remember my last words. Mere 
book learning in physical Science is a sham and a 
delusion. What you teach, unless you wish to be 
impostors, that you must first know ; and real 
knowledge in Science means personal acquaint- 
ance with the facts, be they few or many." But I Dr. Adand 
must add to these authoritative words those of Dr. 
Acland, who, when asked by the Public Schools 
Commission his opinion of the London University 
Examinations in Physical Science, thus replied : 
"I may say, generally, that I should value all 
knowledge of these physical sciences very little 
indeed unless it was otherwise than book-work. 
If it is merely a question of getting up certain 
books, and being able to answer certain book 
questions, that is merely an exercise of the memory 
of a very useless kind. The great object, though 
not the sole object, of this training should be to 
get the boys to observe and understand the action 
of matter in some department or another. ... I 



270 True Foundation of Science-Teaching. 



Prof. Huxley 
on text-books. 



Text-books^ 
may furnish 
second-hand 
knowledge, but 
cannot train 
the mind. 



want them to see and know the things, and in 
that way they will evoke many qualities of the 
mind, which the study of these subjects is intended 
to develop" (vol. iv. p. 407). These words suffi- 
ciently show both what the true foundation is, and 
what it is not. Once more — for the importance of 
this matter can hardly be too much insisted on — 
hear what Prof. Huxley says, in his evidence be- 
fore the Commission on Scientific Instruction (p. 
23): "The great blunder that our people make, 
I think, is attempting to teach from books ; our 
schoolmasters have largely been taught from books 
and nothing but books, and a great many of them 
understand nothing but book-teaching, as far as I 
can see. The consequence is, that when they 
attempt to deal with Scientific teaching, they make 
nothing of it. If you are setting to work to teach 
a child Science, you must teach it through its eyes, 
and its hands, and its senses." 

I do not for a moment deny that much is to be 
gained from the study of scientific text-books. It 
would be absurd to do so. What I do deny is 
that the reading up of books on Science — which is, 
strictly speaking, a literary study — either is, or can 
possibly be, a training in scientific method. To 
receive facts in Science on any other authority 
than that of the facts themselves ; to get up the ob- 
servations, experiments, and comments of others, 
instead of observing, experimenting, and com- 
menting ourselves ; to learn definitions, rules, ab- 



True Foundation of Science-Teaching. 271 

stract propositions, technicalities, before we per- 
sonally deal with the facts which lead up to them; 
all this, whether in literary or scientific education 
— and especially in the latter — is of the essence of 
cramming, and is therefore entirely opposed to, 
and destructive of, true mental training and dis- 
cipline. 



272 True Foundation of Science-Teaching. 



THE TRUE FOUNDATION OF SCIENCE- 
TEACHING. 

ANALYSIS. 

PAGE 

Demand for Science-teaching „ , 254 

Science not well taught 255 

Science organized knowledge 255 

Knowledge of two kinds 256 

(1) What we know through our own experience 256 

(2) What we know through the experience of 

others 256 

We can only convert into science the first kind 257 

The function of the teacher in science-teaching that 

of superintending the learner 258 

He must consider the learner's process 259 

He must form the mind and not cram it 260 

This is Mr. Henslow's method 261 

This is Miss Youmans' method 262 

Prof. Huxley quoted 263 

Mr. Wilson quoted 264 

Dr. Kemshead quoted 265 

The best books are the facts of Nature 267 

Objections to text-books 268 

(1) They contain the experiments of others 265 

(2) The conclusion of the writer comes first. . . . 265 

Prof. Huxley quoted 269 

Dr. Acland quoted 269 

Prof. Huxley again 270 

Text-books may furnish' information but not train 

the mind 270 



PESTALOZZI : 

THE INFLUENCE OF HIS PRINCIPLES AND 

PRACTICE ON ELEMENTARY 

EDUCATION.* 



Familiar as Pestalozzi's name is to our ears, it Pestaiozzi not 
will hardly be pretended that he himself is well 
known amongst us. His life and personal char- 
acter — the work he did himself, and that which 
he influenced others to do — his successes and 
failures as a teacher, form altogether a large sub- 
ject, which requires, to do it justice, a thoughtful 
and lengthened study. Parts of the subject have 
been from time to time brought very prominently 
before the public, but often in such a way as to 
throw the rest into shadow, and hinder the appre- 
ciation of it as a whole. Though this has been 
done without any hostile intention, the general 
effect has been in England to misrepresent, and 
therefore to under-estimate, a very remarkable man 
— a man whose principles, slowly but surely oper- 
ating on the public opinion of Germany, have 

* A lecture delivered at the College of Preceptors, on 
the 20th Feb., 1875. 



276 



Pestaloni. 



Generally 
spoken of as a 
philanthropist- 



Also as a 
theorist. 



turn right round 



in a new 



sufficed, to use his own pithy expression, "to 
the car of Education, and set it 
direction." 

One of the aspects in which he has been brought 
before us — and it deserves every consideration — is 
that of an earnest, self-sacrificing, enthusiastic 
philanthropist, endowed with what Richter calls 
"an almighty love," whose first and last thought 
was how he might raise the debased and suffering 
among his countrymen to a higher level of hap- 
piness and knowledge, by bestowing upon them 
the blessings of education. It is right that he 
should be thus exhibited to the world, for never 
did any man better deserve to be enrolled in the 
noble army of martyrs who have died that others 
might live, than Pestalozzi. To call him the 
Howard of educational philanthropists, is only 
doing scant justice to his devoted character, and 
under-estimates, rather than over-estimates, the 
man. 

Another aspect in which Pestalozzi is sometimes 
presented to us is that of an unhandy, unpracti- 
cal, dreamy theorist ; whose views were ever ex- 
tending beyond the compass of his control ; who, 
like the djinn of the Eastern story, called into 
being forces which mastered instead of obeying 
him ; whose " unrivalled incapacity for governing" 
(this is his own confession) made him- the victim 
of circumstances ; who was utterly wanting in 
worldly wisdom; who, knowing man, did not 



Pestaloitfi. 277 

know men ; and who, therefore, is to be set down 
as one who promised much more than he per- 
formed. It is impossible to deny that there is 
substantial truth in such a representation ; but 
this only increases the wonder that, in spite of his 
disqualifications, he accomplished so much. It is 
still true that his awakening voice, calling for re- 
form in education, was responded to by hundreds 
of earnest and intelligent men, who placed them- 
selves under his banner, and were proud to follow 
whither the Luther of educational reform wished 
to lead them. 

A third view of Pestalozzi presents him to us as Also as inter - 
merely interested about elementary education — Primary teach- 
and this appears to many who are engaged in 
teaching what are called higher subjects, a matter 
in which they have little or no concern. Those, 
however, who thus look down on Pestalozzi's 
work only show, by their indifference, a profound 
want, both of self-knowledge, and of a knowledge 
of his principles and purpose. Elementary educa- 
tion, in the sense in which Pestalozzi understands 
it, is, or ought to be, the concern of every teacher, 
whatever be his especial subject, and whatever the 
age of his pupils ; and when he sees that elemen- 
tary education is only another expression for the 
forming of the character and mind of the child, he 
must acknowledge that this object comes properly 
within the sphere of his labors, and deserves, on 
every ground, his thoughtful attention. 



278 



Pestalo^i. 



His disqualifi- 
cations and 
dijficztlties. 



His influence 
greater than 
that of any 
other educator. 



(1) His age. 



In spite, then, of Pestalozzi's patent disqualifica- 
tions in many respects for the task he undertook ; 
in spite of his ignorance of even common subjects 
(for he spoke, read, wrote, and ciphered badly, 
and knew next to nothing of classics or science); 
in spite of his want of wordly wisdom, of any 
comprehensive and exact knowledge of men and 
of things ; in spite of his being merely an elemen- 
tary teacher, — through the force of his all-con- 
quering love, the nobility of his heart, the resist- 
less energy of his enthusiasm, his firm grasp of a 
few first principles, his eloquent exposition of 
them in words, his resolute manifestation of them 
in deeds, — he stands forth among educational re- 
formers as the man whose influence on education 
is wider, deeper, more penetrating, than that of 
all the rest — the prophet and the sovereign of the 
domain in which he lived and labored. 

The fact that, with such disqualifications and 
drawbacks, hie has attained such a position, super- 
sedes any argument for our giving earnest heed to 
what he was and what he did. It is a fact preg- 
nant in suggestions, and to the consideration of 
them this Lecture is to be devoted. 

It was late in life — he was fifty-two years of 
age — before Pestalozzi became a practical school- 
master. He had even begun to despair of ever 
finding the career in which he might attempt to 
realize the theories over which his loving heart 
and teeming brain had been brooding from his 



Pestalo^i. 279 

earliest youth. He feared that he should die, 
without reducing the ideal of his thought to the 
real of action.* 

Besides the advanced age at which Pestalozzi (2) No cxfieri- 
began his work, there was another disability in his 
case to which I have not referred. This was, that 
not only had he had no experience of school 
work, but he knew no eminent teacher whose ex- 
ample might have stimulated him to imitation ; 
and he was entirely ignorant (with one notable 
exception) of all writings on the theory and prac- 
tice of education. The exception I refer to is the 
Emile of Rousseau, a remarkably suggestive book, 
which made, as was to be expected, a strong im- 
pression on his mind. We know from his own 
account, that he had already endeavored, with in- 
different success, to make his own son another 
Emile. The diary, in which he has recorded day 
by day the particulars of his experiment is ex- 
tremely interesting and instructive. 

At fifty-two years of age, then, we find Pesta- 

* See the particulars of Pestalozzi's life, in Mr. Quick's 
admirable Essays on Educational. Reformers; in Pesta- 
lozzi, edited for the Home and Colonial Society, by Mr. 
Dunning, in Von Raumer's History of Education; in 
Roger de Guimps' Histoire de Pestalozzi, de sa Pens/e, et 
de son (Euvre, Lausanne, 1874; m tne Life and Work of 
Pestalozzi, by Hermann Kriisi, New York, 1875; and in 
various treatises by Mr. Henry Barnard, formerly Com- 
missioner of Education, Washington. 



280 



Pestalo^i. 



(3) The build 
ing scarcely 
Jiabitable. 



(4) The chil- 
dren diseased 
and ignorant. 



lozzi utterly unacquainted with the science and the 
art of education, and very scantily furnished even 
with elementary knowledge, undertaking at Stanz, 
in the canton of Unterwalden, the charge of eighty 
children, whom the events of war had rendered 
homeless and destitute. Here he was at last in 
the position which, during years of sorrow and 
disappointment, he had eagerly desired to fill. He 
was now brought into immediate contact with 
ignorance, vice, and brutality, and had the op- 
portunity for testing the power of his long-cherished 
theories. The man whose absorbing idea had 
been that the ennobling of the people, even of the 
lowest class, through education, was no mere 
dream, was now, in the midst of extraordinary 
difficulties, to struggle with the solution of the 
problem. And surely if any man consciously 
possessing strength to fight, and only desiring to 
be brought face to face with his adversary, ever 
had his utmost wishes granted, it was Pestalozzi at 
Stanz. Let us try for a moment to realize the 
circumstances — the forces of the enemy on the 
one side, the single arm on the other, and the field 
of the combat. The house in which the eighty 
children were assembled, to be boarded, lodged, 
and taught, was an old tumble-down Ursuline 
convent, scarcely habitable, and destitute of all 
the conveniences of life. The only apartment 
suitable for a schoolroom was about twenty-four 
feet square, furnished with a few desks and forms; 



Pestaloitfi. 281 

and into this were crowded the wretched children, 
noisy, dirty, diseased and ignorant, with the man- 
ners and habits of barbarians. Pestalozzi's only 
helper in the management of the institution was an 
old woman, who cooked the food and swept the 
rooms ; so that he was, as he tells us himself, not Forced to do 
only the teacher, but the paymaster, the man-ser- %£zt LlZcA? 
vant, and almost the house-maid of the children. 

Here, then, we see Pestalozzi surrounded by a His warm 
"sea of troubles," against which he had not only comes these. 
"to take arms," but to forge the arms himself. 
And what was the single weapon on which he re- 
lied for conquest? It was his own loving heart. 
Hear his words : ' ' My wishes were now accom- 
plished. I felt convinced that my heart would 
change the condition of my children as speedily as 
the springtide sun reanimates the earth frozen by 
the winter." "Nor," he adds, " was I mistaken. 
Before the springtide sun melted away the snow 
from our mountains, you could no longer recog- 
nize the same children." 

But how was this wonderful transformation 
effected ? What do Pestalozzi's words really 
mean ? Let us pause for a moment to consider 
them. Here is a man who, in presence of igno- 
rance, obstinacy, dirt, brutality, and vice — enemies 
that will destroy him unless he can destroy them — 
opposes to them the unresistible might of weak- 
ness, or what appears such, and fights them with 
his heart! 



282 Pestalo&i. 

indispensable Let all teachers ponder over the fact, and re- 

■weapon for the . , . 

teacher. member that this weapon, too frequently forgotten, 

and therefore unforged in our training colleges, is 
an indispensable requisite to their equipment. 
Wanting this, all the paraphernalia of literary cer- 
tificates — even the diplomas of the College of Pre- 
ceptors — will be unavailing. With it, the teacher, 
poorly furnished in other respects (think of Pesta- 
lozzi's literary qualifications !), may work wonders, 
compared with which the so-called magician's are 
mere child's play. The first lesson, then, that we 
learn from Pestalozzi is, that the teacher must 
have a heart — an apparently simple but really pro- 
found discovery, to which we cannot attach too 
much importance. 
He gave him- But Pestalozzi's own heart was not merely a 
pus. ' statical heart — a heart furnished with capabilities 

for action, but not acting; it was a dynamical 
heart — a heart which was constantly at work, and 
vitalized the system. Let us see how it worked. 

" I was obliged," he says, " unceasingly to be 
everything to my children. I was alone with them 
from morning to night. It was from my hand 
that they received whatever could be of service 
both to their bodies and minds, All succor, all 
consolation, all instruction came to them im- 
mediately from myself. Their hands were in my 
hand ; my eyes were fixed on theirs, my tears 
mingled with theirs, my smiles encountered theirs, 
my soup was their soup, my drink was their drink. 



Pestaloni. 283 

I had around me neither family, friends, nor ser- 
vants ; I had only them. I was with them when 
they were in health, by their side when they were 
ill. I slept in their midst. I was the last to goto 
bed, the first to rise in the morning. When we 
were in bed, I used to pray with them and talk to 
them till they went to sleep. They wished me to 
do so." 

This active, practical, self-sacrificing love, beam- The response. 
ing on the frozen hearts of the children, by de- 
grees melted and animated them. But it was only 
by degrees. Pestalozzi was at first disappointed. 
He had expected too much, and had formed no 
plan of action. He even rather prided himself 
upon his want of plan. 

"I knew," he says, "no system, no method, 
no art but that which rested on the simple conse- 
quences of the firm belief of the children in my 
love towards them. I wished to know no other." 

Before long, however, he began to see that the Discovered the 
response which the movement of his heart towards lightened'con- 
theirs called forth was rather a response of his 5C 
personal efforts, than one dictated by their own 
will and conscience. It excited action, but not 
spontaneous, independent action. This did not 
satisfy him. He wished to make them act from 
strictly moral motives. 

Gradually, then, Pestalozzi advanced to the main 
principles of his system of moral education — that 
virtue, to be worth anything, must be practical ; 



284 PestalouL 

that it must consist not merely in knowing what 
is right, but in doing it ; that even knowing what 
is right does not come from the exposition of dog- 
matic precepts, but from the convictions of the 
conscience ; and that, therefore, both knowing 
and doing rest ultimately on the enlightenment of 
the conscience through the exercise of the intel- 
lect. 
To awake the He endeavored, in the first place, to awaken the 

moral sense , . i ,i 1 -i j • p 

he brought that moral sense — to make the children conscious of 
"ion. " aC ~ their moral powers, and to accomplish his object, 
not by preaching to them, though he sometimes 
did this, but by calling these powers into exercise. 
He gave them, as he tells us, few explanations. 
He taught them dogmatically neither morality not 
religion. He wished them to be both moral and 
religious ; but he conceived that it was not pos- 
sible to make them so by verbal precept, by word 
of command, nor by forcing them to commit to 
memory formularies which did not represent their 
own convictions. He did not wish them to say 
method of they believed, before they believed. He appealed 
to what was divine in their hearts, implanted there 
by the Supreme Creator ; and having brought it 
out into consciousness, called on them to exhibit 
it in action. "When/' he says, "the children 
were perfectly still, so that you might hear a pin 
drop, I said to them, ' Don't you feel yourselves 
more reasonable and more happy now than when 
you are making a disorderly noise ? ' When they 



7/ 

loins; this. 



Pestahtfi. 285 

clung round my neck and called me their father, 
I would say, ' Children, could you deceive your 
father? Could you, after embracing me thus, do 
behind my back what you know I disapprove of? ' 
And when we were speaking about the misery of 
our country, and they felt the happiness of their 
own lot, I used to say, ' How good God is, to 
make the heart of man pitiful and compassionate.'" 
At other times, after telling them of the desolation 
of some family in the neighborhood, he would ask 
them whether they were willing to sacrifice a por- 
tion of their own food to feed the starving chil- 
dren of that family. 

These instances will suffice to show generally Beginning 

, with the near- 

what Pestalozzi meant by moral education, and by, he proceeded 

. . lii 1 • r t° M ie remote. 

how he operated on the hearts and consciences or 
the children. We see that, instead of feeding their 
imagination with pictures of virtue beyond and 
above their sphere, he called on them to exercise 
those within their reach. He knew what their 
ordinary family life had been, and he wished to 
prepare them for something better and nobler ; but 
he felt that this could only be accomplished by mak- 
ing them, while members of his family, consciously 
appreciate what was right and desire to do it. 

Here then, in moral and, as we shall presently 
see, in intellectual education, Pestalozzi proceeded 
from the near, the practical, the actual — to the 
remote, the abstract, the ideal. It was on the 
foundation of what the children were, and could 



2 86 



Pestalo^i. 



Next he saw 
intellectual 
training' was 
helpful to 
moral train- 
ing. 



PestalozzV s 
principles. 



become, in the sphere they occupied, that he built 
up their moral education. 

But he conceived — and, I think, justly — that 
their intellectual training was to be looked on as 
part of their moral training. Whatever increases 
our knowledge of things as they are, leads to the 
appreciation of the truth ; for truth, in the widest 
sense of the term, is this knowledge. But the ac- 
quisition of knowledge, as requiring mental effort, 
and therefore exercising the active powers, neces- 
sarily increases the capacity to form judgments on 
moral questions ; so, that, in proportion as you 
cultivate the will, the affections, and the con- 
science, with a view to independent action, you 
must cultivate the intellect, which is to impose 
the proper limits on that independence; and on 
the other hand, in proportion as you cultivate the 
intellect, you must train the moral powers which 
are to carry its decisions into effect. Moral and 
intellectual education must consequently, in the 
formation of the human being, proceed together, 
the one stimulating and maintaining the action of 
the other. Pestalozzi, therefore, instructed as 
well as educated ; and indeed educated by means 
of instruction. In carrying out this object, he 
adopted the general principle I before stated. He 
proceeded from the near, the practical, the actual, 
to the remote, the abstract, and the ideal. 

We shall see his theoretical views on this point 
in a few quotations from a work which he wrote 



Pestalotfi. 287 

some years before, entitled "The Evening Hour 
of a Hermit." He says : 

" Nature develops all the human faculties by practice, 
and their growth depends on their exercise." 

11 The circle of knowledge commences close around a 
man, and thence extends concentrically." * 

14 Force not the faculties of children into the remote 
paths of knowledge, until they have gained strength by 
exercise on things that are near them." 

" There is in Nature an order and march of develop- 
ment. If you disturb or interfere with it, you mar the 
peace and harmony of the mind. And this you do, if, 
before you have formed the mind by the progressive 
knowledge of the realities of life, you fling it into the 
labyrinth of words, and make them the basis of develop- 
ment." 

44 The artificial march of the ordinary school, anticipat- 
ing the order of Nature, which proceeds without anxiety 
and without haste, inverts this order by placing words 
first, and thus secures a deceitful appearance of success at 
the expense of natural and safe development." 

In these few sentences we recognize all that is 
most characteristic in the educational principles 
of Pestalozzi. 

I will put them into another form : 

(1) There is a natural order in which the powers 
of the human being develop or unfold themselves. 

(2) We must study and understand this order 
of Nature, if we would aid, and not disturb, the 
development. 

* This is a most important principle. — Ed, 



288 Pestalotfi. 

(3) We aid the development, and consequently 
promote the growth of the faculties concerned in 
it, when we call them into exercise. 

(4) Nature exercises the faculties of children on 
the realities of life — on the near, the present, the 
actual. 

(5) If we would promote that exercise of the 
faculties which constitutes development, and ends 
in growth, we also, as teachers, must, in the case 
of children, direct them to the realities of life — to 
the things which come in contact with them, 
which concern their immediate interests, feelings, 
and thoughts. 

(6) Within this area of personal experience we 
must confine them, until, by assiduous, practical 
exercise in it, their powers are strengthened, and 
they are prepared to advance to the next concen- 
tric circle, and then to the next, and so on, in un- 
broken succession. 

(7) In the order of Nature, things go before 
words, the realities before the symbols, the sub- 
stance before shadow. We cannot, without dis- 
turbing the harmonious order of the development, 
invert this order. If we do so, we take the 
traveller out of the open sunlit high-road, and 
plunge him into an obscure labyrinth, where he 
gets entangled and bewildered, and loses his 
way. 

These are the fundamental principles of Pesta- 
lozzi's theory of intellectual as well as moral edu- 



Pestaloni. 289 

cation, and I need hardly say that they resolve 
themselves into the principles of human nature. 

But we next inquire, How did he apply them ? Application of 

.... . . . . .. „, . his principles 

\\ hat was his method ? 1 hese questions are not skilful. 
somewhat embarrassing, and, if strictly pressed, 
must be answered by saying that he often applied 
them very imperfectly and inconsistently, and that 
his method for the most part consisted in having 
none at all. The fact is, that the unrivalled in- 
capacity for governing men and external things, 
to which he confessed, extended itself also to the 
inner region of his understanding. He could no 
more govern his conceptions than the circum- 
stances around him. The resulting action, then, 
was wanting in order and proportion. It was the 
action of a man set upon bringing out the powers 
of those he influenced, but apparently almost in- 
different to what became of the results. His no- 
tion of education as development was clear, but he 
scarcely conceived of it as also training and dis- 
cipline. Provided that he could secure a vivid 
interest in his lesson, and see the response to his 
efforts in the kindling eyes and animated coun- 
tenances of pupils, he was satisfied. (1) He took His fault: 
it for granted that what was so eagerly received 
would be certainly retained, and therefore never 
thought of repeating the lesson, nor of examining 
the product. (2) He was so earnestly intent upon 
going ahead, that he scarcely looked back to see 
who were following ; and to his enormous zeal 



290 Pestaloqtf. 

for the good of the whole, often sacrificed the in- 
terests of individuals. This zeal was without dis- 
cretion. (3) He forgot what he might have 
learned from Rousseau — that a teacher who is 
master of his art frequently advances most surely 
by standing still, and does most by doing nothing. 
In the matter of words, moreover, his practice 
was often directly opposed to his principles. 
(4) He would give lists of words to be repeated 
after him, or learnt by heart, which represented 
nothing real in the experience of the pupils. In 
various other ways he manifested a strange incon- 
sistency. 

Yet, in spite of these drawbacks, if we look 
upon the teacher as a man whose especial function 
it is, to use an illustration from Socrates, to be, 
as it were, the accoucheur of the mind, to bring it 
out into the sunlight of life, to rouse its dormant 
powers, and make it conscious of their possession, 
we must assign to Pestalozzi a very high rank 
among teachers. 
His skin. It was this remarkable instinct for developing 

the faculties of his pupils that formed his main 
characteristic as a teacher. Herein lay his great 
strength. To set the intellectual machinery in 
motion — to make it work, and keep it working ; 
that was the sole object at which he aimed : of all 
the rest he took little account. If he had any 
method, this was its most important element. 
But, in carrying it out, he relied upon a principle 



ton 



Pestalotfi. 291 

which must be insisted on as cardinal and essential 
in education. He secured the thorough interest of 
his pupils in the lesson, and mainly through their 
own direct share in it. By his influence upon 
them he got them to concentrate all their powers 
upon it ; and this concentration, involving self- 
exercise, in turn, by reaction, augmented the in- 
terest ; and the result was an inseparable associa- 
tion of the act of learning with pleasure in learning. 
Whatever else, then, Pestalozzi's teaching lacked, 
it was intensely interesting to the children, and 
made them love learning. 

Consistently with the principles quoted from His conceptio.. 
the ' ' Evening Hours of a Hermit, " and with the "function? * n 
practice just described, we see that Pestalozzi's 
conception of the teacher's function made it con- 
sist pre-eminently in rousing the pupil's native 
energies, and bringing about their self-develop- 
ment. This self-development is the consequence 
of the self-activity of the pupil's own mind — of 
the experience which his mind goes through in 
dealing with the matter to be learned. This ex- 
perience must be his own ; by no other experi- 
ence than his own can he be educated at all. The 
education, therefore, that he gains is self-educa- 
tion ; and the teacher is constituted as the stimu- 
lator and director of the intellectual processes by 
which the learner educates himself This I hold 
to be the central principle of all education — of all 
teaching; and although not formally enunciated 



292 Pestalo^i. 

in these words by Pestalozzi, it is clearly deducible 
from his theory. 
PestaiozzVs We are now prepared to estimate the great and 

service to edu- , . 

«<w». special service which Pestalozzi did to education. 

It is not his speculative theories, nor his practice 
(especially the latter), which have given him his 
reputation — it is that he, beyond all who pre- 
ceded him, demanded that paramount importance 
should be attached to the elementary stages of 
teaching.* "Wis differentia," as Mr. Quick justly 
remarks, "is rather his aim than his method." 
He saw more clearly than all his predecessors, not 
only what was needed, but how the need was to 
be supplied. Elementary education, in his view, 
means, not definite instruction in special subjects, 
but the eliciting of the powers of the child as pre- 
parative to definite instruction, — it means that 
course of cultivation which the mind of every child 
ought to go through, in order to secure the all-sided 
development of his powers. It does not mean 
learning to read, write, and cipher, which are 
matters of instruction, but the exercises which 
should precede them. Viewed more generally, it 
is that assiduous work of the pupil's mind upon 
facts, as the building materials of knowledge, by 
which they are to be shaped and prepared for their 
place in the edifice. After this is done, but not 

* As we should say, to primary teaching (see page 
297). 



Pestalotfi. 293 

before, instruction proper commences its system- 
atic work. 

This principle may find its most general expres- ^S*?f?f 
sion as a precept for the teacher thus : Always 
make your pupil begin his education by dealing with 
concrete things and facts, never with abstractions and 
generalizations — such as definitions, rules, and 
propositions couched in zvords. Things first, after- 
wards words — particular facts first, afterwards 
general facts, or principles. The child has eyes, 
ears, and fingers, which he can employ on things 
and facts, and gain ideas — that is, knowledge — 
from them. Let him, then, thus employ them. 
This employment constitutes his elementary edu- 
cation — the education which makes him conscious 
of his powers, forms the mind, and prepares it for 
its after work. 

We now see what Pestalozzi meant by elemen- How he would 

J elevate the 

tary education. The next question is, how he educational 
proposed to secure it. Let us hear what he him- 
self says : " If I look back and ask myself what I 
have really done towards the improvement of 
elementary education, I find that in recognizing 
Observation (Anschauung) as the absolute basis of 
all knowledge, I have established the first and 
most important principle of instruction ; and that, 
setting aside all particular systems, I have en- 
deavored to discover what ought to be the char- 
acter of instruction itself, and what are the funda- 
mental laws according to which the natural edu- 



i 94 Pestalo^ji. 

cation of the human race must be conducted/' 
In another place he says, ' ' Observation is the ab- 
solute basis of all knowledge. In other words, 
all knowledge must proceed from observation, and 
must admit of being traced to that source. " 

The word Anschauung, which we translate 
generally and somewhat vaguely by Observation, 
corresponds rather more closely to our word Per- 
ception. It is the mind's looking into, or intel- 
lectual grasping of, a thing, which is due to the 
reaction of its powers, after the passive reception 
of impressions or sensations from it. We see a 
thing which merely flits before our eyes, but we 
perceive it only when we. have exhausted the action 
of our senses upon it, when we have dealt with it 
by the whole mind. The act of perception, then, 
is the act by which we know the object. If we 
use the term Observation in this comprehensive 
sense, it may be taken as equivalent to An- 
schauung. 

Observation, then, according to Pestalozzi (and 
Bacon had said the same thing before him), is the 
absolute basis of all knowledge, and is, therefore, 
the prime agent in elementary education. It is 
around this theory, as a centre of gravity, that 
Pestalozzi's system revolves. 
The senses The demands of this theory can only be satisfied 

must be edu- m 

cated. by educating the learners senses, and making 

him, by their use, an accurate observer — and this 
not merely for the purpose of quickening the 



Pestaloni. 295 

senses, but of securing clear and definite percep- 
tions, and this again with a view to lay firmly the 
foundation of all knowledge. The habit of ac- 
curate observation, as I have thus defined it, is 
not taught by Nature. It must be acquired by 
experience. Miss Martineau remarks : " A child 
does not catch a gold fish in water at the first 
trial, however good his eyes may be, and however 
clear the water. Knowledge and method are 
necessary to enable him to take what is actually 
before his eyes and under his hand ;" and she 
adds, ' ' The powers of observation must be trained, 
and habits of method in arranging the materials 
presented to the eye [and the other sense-organs] 
must be acquired before the student possesses the 
requisites for understanding what he contem- 
plates."* 

It is scarcely necessary to show in detail what 
is meant by the education of the senses. This 
education consists in their exercise — an exercise 
which involves the development of all the elemen- 
tary powers of the learner. Any one may see this 
education going on in the games and employments 
of the kindergarten, and indeed in the occupations 
of every little child left to himself. It is, there- 
fore, in the strictest sense of the term, self-educa- 



* See some excellent remarks on this subject in Miss 
Youmans' essay on the culture of the observing powers of 
children in Second Book of Botany. New York, 



296 Pestaloni. 

tion. But it should also be made an object of 
direct attention and study, and lessons should be 
How educated, given for the express purpose of securing it. The 
materials for such lessons are of course abundant 
on every hand. Earth, sky, and sea, the dwell- 
ing-house, the fields, the gardens, the streets, the 
river, the forest, supply them by thousands. All 
things within the area of the visible, the audible, 
and the tangible, supply the matter for such object 
lessons, and upon these concrete realities the sense 
may be educated. Drawing, again, and mould- 
ing in clay, the cutting out of paper forms, building 
with wooden bricks or cubes to a pattern, are all 
parts of the education of the senses, and at the 
same time, exercises for the improvement of the 
observing powers. Then, again, measuring ob- 
jects with a foot measure, weighing them in scales 
with real weights, gaining the power of estimating 
the dimensions of bodies by the eye, and their 
weight by poising them in the hand, and then 
verifying the guesses by actual trial — these, too, 
are valuable exercises for the education of the 
senses. It is needless to particularize further, but 
who does not see that such exercises involve, not 
merely the training of the senses, but also the 
culture of the observing powers as well as the ex- 
ercise of judgment, reasoning, and invention, and 
all as parts of elementary education ? * It is im- 

* I beg very strongly to recommend to all teachers, 



Pestaloi%j. 297 

possible to exaggerate their value and import- 
ance. 

But elementary education, rightly understood, The same prin- 

J * O J 1 ci p le applies to 

applies also to the initiatory stage of all definite <*u teaching. 
instruction. If we accept Pestalozzi's doctrine, 
that all education must begin with the near, the 
actual, the real, the concrete, we must not begin 
any subject whatever, in the case of children, with 
the remote, the abstract, and the ideal — that is, 
never with definitions, generalities, or rules ; 
which, as far as their experience is concerned, all 
belong to this category. In teaching Physics, 
then, we must begin with the phenomena them- 
selves ; in teaching Magnetism, for instance, with 
the child's actual experience of the mutual attrac- 
tion of the magnet and the steel bar ; Arithmetic 
must begin with counting and grouping marbles, 
peas, etc., not with abstract numbers; Geometry, 
not with propositions and theorems, but with ob- 
serving the forms of solid cubes, spheres, etc.; 
Geography, not with excursions into unknown 
regions, but with the schoolroom, the house, etc., 
thence proceeding concentrically ; Language, too, 
with observing words and sentences as facts to be 
compared together, classified, and generalized by 
the learner himself. In all these cases the same 



and to mothers who teach their children, a most valuable 
little book, written by the late Horace Grant — Exercises 
for the Improvetnent of the Senses. London. 



298 



Pestalo^i, 



The element- 
ary method 
and the scien- 
tific method. 



principle applies. The learner must first gain 
personal experience in the area of the near and 
the real, in which he can exercise his own powers; 
this area thus becomes the known which is to in- 
terpret the unknown, and thus the principle is es- 
tablished that the learner educates himself under 
the stimulation and direction of the educator. 

You are now, I presume, aware of what Pesta- 
lozzi means by elementary education ; and you 
see that it resolves itself into the education which 
the learner gives himself by exercising his own 
powers of observation and experiment. The 
method of elementary education, is, therefore, the 
child's own natural method of gaining knowl- 
edge, guided and superintended by the formal 
teacher. 

This method has been, by Diesterweg, an emi- 
nent German disciple of Pestalozzi, strongly dis- 
tinguished from what he calls the Scientific method 
— that which is employed in higher instruction, in 
universities and colleges, and is suitable for learners 
whose minds are already developed and trained. 

(1) The Elementary method, he says, is inductive, 
analytic, inventive (or heuristic, from evpicTKQO, I 
find out), developing. It begins with individual 
things or facts, lays these as the foundation, and 
proceeds afterwards to general facts or principles. 

(2) The Scientific method, on the other hand, is 
deductive, synthetic, dogmatic, and didactic. It 
begins with definitions, general propositions, and 



Pestaloni. 299 

axioms, and proceeds downwards to the individual 
facts on which they are founded. 

I will give the substance of his further remarks 
on the subject. 

(3) In learning by the Elementary method, we 
begin with individual things — facts or objects. 
From these we gain definite ideas, ideas naturally 
related to the condition of our powers, or of our 
knowledge, as being the result of our own per- 
sonal experience. Such knowledge, as the prod- 
uct of our own efforts, is ours, in a sense in 
which no knowledge of others can ever become 
ours ; and, being ours, serves as the solid basis of 
the judgment and inductions that we are able to 
form, — the method is inductive because it begins 
with individual facts. 

(4) The Scientific method, on the other hand, 
is deductive, because it begins with general princi- 
ples, definitions, axioms, formulae, etc. ; that is to 
say, with deductive propositions founded on facts 
which the learner is afterwards to know, not with 
facts which he already knows. The definitions, 
etc., are constructed for him, not by him. They 
are the ready-made results of the exploration of 
others, not the gains of his own. The deductive 
method proceeds from the summit to the founda- 
tion, from the unknown to the known ; the in- 
ductive, from the foundation to the summit, from 
the known to the unknown. 

(5) The mind dealing with individual things, 



300 Pestalotfi. 

and seeking to know them, has no choice but to 
subject them to mental analysis. Every indi- 
vidual thing is an aggregate of elements, which 
can only be known by disintegration of the com- 
pound. Nature presents us with no element what- 
ever alone and simple. The Elementary method, 
therefore, which requires the learner to perform 
this disintegration, is analytic. In other words, as 
resting on observation and experiment, it is the 
method of investigation. 

(6) The Scientific method, on the other hand, 
is synthetic, it performs the analysis for the learner, 
and hands over to him the results. It directs him 
to re-construct something, the form of which he 
has not seen, and tells him at every moment where 
and how he is to place the materials. He does 
not necessarily know what he is constructing until 
the complete form is before him. He satisfies the 
demands of the method, if he obeys the directions 
given him. He is not required to observe and ex- 
periment — i.e., to investigate for himself. 

(7) The Elementary method is inventive (heuris- 
tic). It places the learner on the path of discov- 
ery, and by encouraging spontaneity and inde- 
pendence, gives free scope for the exercise of all 
his powers. It suggests to him new combinations 
of ideas already acquired, and the solution of 
difficulties which come in his way. 

(8) The spirit of the Scientific method is opposed 
to invention. It didactically furnishes ready-made 



Pestaloni. 301 

matter which is to be received, not questioned, 
and dogmatically prescribes obedience to fixed 
rules. It consequently checks spontaneity, inde- 
pendence, and invention. 

(9) The Scientific method, then, as thus in- 
terpreted, though adapted to students of high pre- 
tensions, is not adapted to those who are acquir- 
ing the elements of knowledge. The mistake, for 
the discovery of which we are indebted to Pesta- 
lozzi, is, that in our ordinary traditional teaching 
the Scientific method has, unfortunately, come to 
be employed in our schools for children where the 
Elementary method alone is natural and suited to 
the circumstances. Pestalozzi's eminent claim to 
our gratitude consists in the service he has done 
to education by "turning the traditional car of 
school routine quite round, and setting it in a new 
direction." 

I conclude the exposition I have given of Pesta- 
lozzi's fundamental principles, by appending a 
summary of them. 

(1) The principles of education are not to be 
devised ab extra; they are to be sought for in hu- 
man nature. 

(2) This nature is an organic nature — a plexus 
of bodily, intellectual, and moral capabilities, 
ready for development, and struggling to develop 
themselves. 

(3) The education conducted by a formal edu- 
cator has both a negative and a positive side, 



302 Pestaloni. 

The negative function of the educator consists in 
removing impediments, so as to afford free scope 
for the learner's self-development. The educa- 
tor's positive function is to stimulate the learner to 
the exercise of his powers, to furnish materials and 
occasions for the exercise, and to superintend and 
maintain the action of the machinery. 

(4) Self-development begins with the impres- 
sions received by the mind from external objects. 
These impressions (called sensations), when the 
mind becomes conscious of them, group them- 
selves into perceptions. These are registered in 
the mind as conceptions or ideas, and constitute 
that elementary knowledge which is the basis of 
all knowledge. 

(5) Spontaneity and self-activity are the neces- 
sary conditions under which the mind educates 
itself, and gains power and independence. 

(6) Practical aptness, or faculty, depends more 
on habits gained by the assiduous oft-repeated ex- 
ercise of the learner's active powers, than on 
knowledge alone. Knowing and doing (wissen 
und kennen) must, however, proceed together. 
The chief aim of all education (including instruc- 
tion) is the development of the learner's powers. 

(7) All education (including instruction) must 
be grounded on the learner's own observation 
(Anschauung) at first hand — on his own personal 
experience. This is the true basis of all his knowl- 
edge. The opposite proceeding leads to empty, 



Pestalotfi. 303 

hollow, delusive word-knowledge. First the 
reality, then the symbol ; first the thing, then the 
word ; not vice versa. 

(8) What the learner has gained by his own ob- 
servation (Atischanung), and, as a part of his 
personal experience, is incorporated with his mind, 
he hiows, and can describe or explain in his own 
words. His competency to do this is the measure 
of the accuracy of his observation, and, conse- 
quently, of his knowledge. 

(9) Personal experience necessitates the advance- 
ment of the learner's mind from the near and 
actual, with which he is in contact, and which he 
can deal with himself, to the more remote ; there- 
fore, from the concrete to the abstract, from par- 
ticulars to generals, from the known to the un- 
known. This is the method of elementary educa- 
tion; the opposite proceeding — the usual pro- 
ceeding of our traditional teaching — leads the 
mind from the abstract to the concrete, from 
generals to particulars, from the unknown to the 
known. This latter is the Scientific method — a 
Tnethod suited only to the advanced learner, who, 
it assumes, is already trained by the Elementary 
method. 



304 Pestalo^i. 



PESTALOZZI: THE INFLUENCE OF HIS 

PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE ON ELEMEN 

TARY EDUCATION. 



ANALYSIS. 

PAGE 

Pestalozzi not well known 275 

Generally considered a philanthropist 276 

Or as a theorist , 276 

Or as interested only in primary education 277 

His disqualifications 278 

Yet a man of educational might 278 

Greater than any other educator 278 

(1) His age, his difficulties 278 

(2) No experience „ 279 

(3) The building dilapidated 280 

(4) The children diseased and ignorant 280 

Obliged to do servile work as well as teach 281 

His warm heart overcomes difficulties 281 

(This last indispensable to teachers) 282 

He gave himself to his pupils 282 

They responded 283 

Saw the need of an enlightened conscience 283 

Awakens moral sense by bringing it into activity... . 284 

His method of doing this 284 

Beginning with the near, he proceeded to the remote 285 
He saw that intellectual training was helpful to mor- 
al training 286 



Pestalo{$i. 305 



PAGE 



His principles 2S6 

(1) There is a natural order in which human 

powers unfold 287 

(2) It is our business to study this order to aid 

development 287 

(3) We aid development by exercise 288 

(4) Nature exercises the faculties of children on 

the near 288 

(5) The realities of life must be chosen 2S8 

(6) They must master one ciicle of personal 

experience before they advance further. . . 289 

(7) Things must be put before words 289 

Pestalozzi not skilful in applying his principles.. . . . 289 
His faults 289 

(1) Not repetition enough 289 

(2) Without discretion 289 

(3) Often did too much 290 

(4) Often gave words before things 290 

His skill great in developing mental power 290 

He understood the function of the teacher 291 

His services to education 292 

H is great principle, ' ' things first" 293 

How he would elevate the educational basis. ...... 293 

The senses must be educated 294 

How this could be done 296 

His principle applies to all teaching 297 

This method truly scientific 298 

Diesterweg's distinction 298 

The Collegiate Method synthetic 298 

The Elementary Method analytic 298 

Pestalozzi's fundamental principles 301 

(1) Principles of education are in the child's na- 

ture 301 

(2) His powers are struggling to develop them- 

selves 301 



306 Pestalozzi. 



PAGE 



(3) The teacher must furnish materials for the 

learner to employ himself on 301 

(4) Sensations become perceptions, and these 

constitute the basis of all knowledge 302 

(5) Spontaneity and self-activity are necessary 

conditions 302 

(6) Oft-repeated exercise of powers is needed to 

give aptness 302 

(7) All education must be grounded on the 

learner's own observation 302 

(8) His power to express his knowledge is the 

measure of his accuracy 303 

(9) He must begin with the concrete, the near. . 303 



FROEBEL AND THE KINDERGAR- 
TEN SYSTEM OF ELEMENT- 
ARY EDUCATION.* 



Among the names of the great Reformers of FroebeVs claim 

T_, , . « • r i . , to distinction. 

Education, there is one which has not yet received 
that honor which it deserves, and with which I 
firmly believe the future will invest it. It is that 
of Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel. His claims 
to distinction among educators are, however, now 
extensively allowed in his native land, as well- as 
in Switzerland, Holland, France, the United 
States, and partially even in England. These 
claims are numerous, and of great importance. 
While many others have labored with greater or 
less success at the superstructure of Education, to 
him belongs the special credit of having earnestly 
devoted himself to the foundation. While others 
have taken to the work of Education their own 
preconceived notions of what that work should 
be, Froebel stands consistently alone in seeking in 

* A Lecture delivered at the College of Preceptors, on the 
25th February, 1874. 



308 Froebel and the Kindergdrten System, 



Utilized chil- 
dren's activi 
ties. 



His childhood. 



the nature of the child the laws of educational 
action — in ascertaining from the child himself how 
we are to educate him. 

Further, Froebel is the first teacher to whom it 
has occurred to convert what is usually considered 
the waste steam of childish activities and energies 
into the means of fruitful action ; to utilize what 
has hitherto been looked upon as unworthy of 
notice; and, moreover, to accomplish this object, 
not only without repressing the natural free spirit 
of childhood, but by making that free spirit the 
very instrument of his purpose. 

In laying before you the development of 
Froebel's principles of elementary education, I 
propose to connect with this development a sketch 
of the personal history of the man. We shall in 
this way learn to appreciate not only the principles 
at which he ultimately arrived, but the mental pro- 
cess which led to them. 

Froebel was born April 21, 1782, at Oberweiss- 
bach, in the principality of Schwarzburg-Rudol- 
stadt. His mother died when he was so young 
that he never even remembered her ; and he was 
left to the care of an ignorant maid-of-all-work, 
who simply provided for his bodily wants. His 
father, who was the laborious pastor of several 
parishes, seems to have been solely occupied with 
his duties, and to have given no concern whatever 
to the development of the child's mind and char- 
acter beyond that of strictly confining him within 



Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 309 

doors, lest he should come to harm by straying 
away. One of his principal amusements, he tells 
us, consisted in watching from the window some 
workmen who were repairing the church, and he 
remembered long afterwards how he earnestly de- 
sired to lend a helping hand himself. The in- 
stinct of construction, for the exercise of which, in 
his system, he makes ample provision, was even 
then stirring within him. 

As years went on, though nothing was done for influenced by 

, 1 «• I Nature. 

his education by others, he found opportunities 
for satisfying some of the longings of his soul, by 
wandering in the woods, gathering flowers, listen- 
ing to the birds, or to the wind as it swayed the 
forest trees, watching the movements of all kinds 
of animals, and laying up in his mind the various 
impressions then produced, as a store for future 
years. He was, in fact, left as much to educate 
himself through nature as was the Mary Somer- 
ville of later times. 

Not until he was ten years of age did he receive His school lift. 
the slightest regular instruction. He was then 
sent to school, to an uncle who lived in the 
neighborhood. This man, a regular driller of the 
old, time-honored stamp, had not the slightest 
conception of the inner nature of his pupil, and 
seems to have taken no pains whatever to discover 
it. He pronounced the boy to be idle (which, 
from his point of view, was quite true) and lazy 
(which certainly was not true) — a boy, in short, 



3io Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 

that you could do nothing with. And, in fact, 
the teacher did nothing with his pupil, never once 
touched the chords of his inner being, or brought 
out the music they were fitted, under different 
handling, to produce. Froebel was indeed, at 
that time, a thoughtful, dreamy child, a very in- 
different student of books, cordially hating the 
formal lessons with which he was crammed, and 
never so happy as when left alone with his great 
teacher in the woods. The result was, that he 
. left school, after your years, almost as ignorant as 
when he entered it, carrying with him as the prod- 
uce of his labor a considerable quantity of chaff, 
but very little corn. The corn consisted in some 
elementary notions of mathematics, a subject 
which interested him throughout his life, and 
which he brought afterwards to bear on the lessons 
of the Kindergarten. 
As a forester. Circumstances, which had proved so adverse to 
his development in his school experiences, took a 
favorable turn in the next step of his life. It was 
necessary for him to earn his bread, and we next 
find him a sort of apprentice to a woodsman in 
the great Thuringian forest. Here, as he after- 
wards tells us, he lived some years in cordial in- 
tercourse with nature and mathematics, learning 
even then, though unconsciously, from the teach- 
ing he received, how to teach others. His daily 
occupation in the midst of trees led him to ob- 
serve the laws of nature, and to recognize union 



Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 311 

and unity in apparently contradictory phenomena. 
Here, too, he reflected on his previous course 
of education ; and formed very decided opinions 
on the utter worthlessness of the ordinary school- 
teaching, as never having reached what was in him- 
self, and, therefore, in his view, failing altogether to 
be a true culture of the mind and of the man. 
His life as a forester, which, though certainly not 
without great influence on his mental character, 
was not to be his final destination, ended when he 
was about eighteen years of age. 

He now went to the University of Jena, where At the Uni- 
he attended lectures on natural history, physics, ve7siy ' 
and mathematics ; but, as he tells us, gained little 
from them. This result was obviously due to the 
same dreamy speculative tendency of mind which 
characterized his earlier school-life. Instead of 
studying hard, he speculated on unity and diver- 
sity, on the relation of the whole to the parts, of 
the parts to the whole, etc., continually striving 
after the unattainable and neglecting the attain- 
able. This desultory style of life was put an end 
to by the failure of means to stay at the univer- 
sity. 

For the next few years he tried various occupa- in various oc- 
cupations — 
tions, ever restlessly tossed to and fro by the de- restless. 

mands of the outer life, and not less distracted by 

the consciousness that his powers had not yet 

found what he calls their *\ centre of gravity." At 

last, however, they found it. While engaged in 



teacher. 



312 Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 

an architect's office at Frankfort, he formed an ac- 
quaintance with the Rector of the Model School, 
a man named Gruner. Gruner saw the capabili- 
ties of Froebel, and detected also his entire want 
of interest in the work that he was doing ; and one 
day suddenly said to him : ''Give up your archi- 
tect's business ; you will do nothing at it. Be a 
teacher. We want one now in the school ; you 
shall have the place. " 
Becomes a This was the turning point in Froebel's life. 

He accepted the engagement, began work at once, 
and tells us that the first time he found himself in the 
midst of a class of thirty or forty boys, he felt that 
he was in the element that he had missed so long 
— "the fish was in the water." He was inex- 
pressibly happy. This ecstasy of feeling, we may 
easily imagine, soon subsided. In a calmer mood 
he severely questioned himself as to the means by 
which he was to satisfy the demands of his new 
position. He found the answer, he says, by de- 
scending into himself, and listening to the teach- 
ings of nature respecting life, mind, and being — 
lessons already theoretically known, but now for 
the first time correlated with practice. ' - My 
hitherto peculiar development, self-cultivation, 
self-teaching," he says, "as well as my observa- 
tion of nature and of life, now found their proper 
place." But he keenly felt, at the same time, the 
effects of his desultory manner of study. He was 
neither instructed in knowledge nor in teaching, 



Froebel ami the Kindergarten System. 313 

but he now resolved to make up for his deficien- 
cies in both respects. About this time he met With Pestai- 
with some of Pestalozzi's writings, which so 
deeply impressed him that he determined to go to 
Yverdun and study Pestalozzism on the spot. He 
accomplished his purpose, and lived and worked 
for two years with Pestalozzi. His experience at 
Yverdun impressed him with the conviction that the 
science of Education had still to draw out from 
Pestalozzi's system those fundamental principles 
which Pestalozzi himself did not comprehend. 
''And therefore," says Schmidt,* "this general 
disciple of Pestalozzi supplemented and com- 
pleted his system by advancing from the point 
which Pestalozzi had reached through pressure 
from without to the innermost conception of man, 
and arriving at the thought of the true develop- 
ment and the condition of the true culture of 
mankind."' Feeling still his want of positive At the Univer- 
knowledge, Froebel spent the next two or three ** y agam ' 
years of his life at the Universities of Gottingen 
and Berlin. It was now, while he was for the first 
time earnestly engaged in study, that his views on 
Education gradually gained consistency and form. 
" Our greatest educators," he says, "even Pesta- 
lozzi himself not excepted, appear to me crudely, 
empirically, capriciously, and, therefore, unscien- 
tifically to allow themselves to be led away from 

* Qeschichte dcr Padagogik, iv. 284. 



314 Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 



Establishes a 
Kindergarten. 



Meaning 0/ 
tke name. 



nature and nature's laws ; they do not appear, in- 
deed, to recognize, honor, and cultivate the di- 
vinity of science/' 

It would only be tedious to relate the various 
preliminary experiences by which Froebel — some- 
times with few, sometimes with many pupils ; 
sometimes under favorable, at other times under 
unfavorable circumstances — pursued his course, 
until the moment when at Blankenburg, near 
Rudolstadt, he established, about the year 1840, 
the school to which he first gave the name of 
Kindergarten. In this name he wished to embody 
two of his favorite theoretical notions : the one, 
that education, as culture, has to do with children 
as human plants, which are to be surrounded with 
circumstances favorable to their free development, 
and to be trained by means suited to their nature ; 
and the other, that a school for little children 
should have attached to it a garden, in which they 
may exercise their natural taste for flowers, and be 
not only the observers but the cultivators of plants. 

Froebel, as well as his disciples of the present day, 
protest against the application of the name School 
to the Kindergarten, which is, in their view, a place 
for the development of the activities and capabilities 
of children before the usual school age begins. 
The Kindergarten proper is intended for children 
of between three and seven years of age. Its pur- 
pose is thus briefly indicated by himself: "To 
take the oversight of children before they are ready 



Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 315 

for school life ; to exert an influence over their 
whole being in correspondence with its nature ; to 
strengthen their bodily powers ; to exercise their 
senses ; to employ the awakening mind ; to make 
them thoughtfully acquainted with the world of 
nature and of man ; to guide their heart and soul 
in a right direction, and lead them to the Origin of 
all life and to union with Him.'' 

You will have observed already that in this pro- 
gramme there is no mention made of reading, 
writing, and arithmetic ; of grammar, geography, 
and history ; of rules, precepts, or general proposi- 
tions ; not a word about books, nor even of in- 
struction at all in its ordinary sense ; yet you will 
also have observed that there is ample provision 
for activity and energy of various kinds — activity 
of limbs, activity of the senses, activity of the 
mind, heart, and of the religious instinct. It is 
in this immense field of natural energies that the 
Froebelian idea ''lives, moves, and has its being." 
You will further see that the carrying out of this 
programme involves something very different in 
spirit and essence from the ordinary course of an 
English infant school, to which children are often 
carried merely "to get them out of the way." 

Having said at the commencement of this lee- The child to 
ture that Froebel as an educator begins at the very e der^arten J n ~ 
beginning, I ought now to add that in his great *,£" year * 
work, "On the Education of Man," he takes into 
consideration the circumstances of the child dur- 



316 Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 

ingthe period which precedes the Kindergarten age, 
and gives many valuable hints to guide the mother, 
who is Nature's deputy and helper, for the first 
three years of its life. As, however, to describe 
his views and plans in relation to that period 
would occupy us too long, I confine myself to the 
Kindergarten age. In Froebel's opinion, the 
mother who consults the true interests of her child 
will, when he is three years old, give him up to 
the governess of the Kindergarten. In this respect 
he differed from Pestalozzi, who thought that the 
mother, as the natural educator of the child, ought 
to retain the charge of him up to his sixth or 
seventh year. It is easy to see that if this opinion 
be acted on, the education of the child will be re- 
stricted to the experience of the family circle. 
According to Froebel, this basis is too narrow. 
The family circle does not generally afford a suffi- 
cient scope for the development of those activities 
which, in their combination, constitute life. A 
system of education, therefore, founded on this 
narrow basis, does not really prepare the child for 
that intercommunion and constant intercourse 
with his fellow men of which life, broadly inter- 
preted, consists. Froebel, moreover, doubts, with 
much reason, whether mothers generally are quali- 
fied for the task assigned them by Pestalozzi, and 
points out that, if they are not, the child must 
suffer from their incompetence, even if he lose 
nothing through neglect occasioned by the de- 



Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 317 

mands of the household upon their time and 
strength. He, therefore, insists that in order to The child's ex- 
furnish children with opportunities for displaying be* widened. 
and developing all their natural capabilities, they 
must be brought together in numbers. The 
mutual action and reaction of forces and activities 
thus necessitated presents, in fact, a miniature 
picture of the larger life to which they are destined. 
The passions, emotions, sufferings, desires of our 
common humanity, have here both scope and oc- 
casion for their fullest manifestation ; while the 
intellectual powers, under the stimulus of inex- 
haustible curiosity and of aptitude for imitation 
and invention, are excited to constant action. At 
the same time the bodily powers — hands, feet, 
muscles, senses — under the influence and impulse 
of companionship, are more actively exercised, 
and the health of the constitution thereby pro- 
moted, while a larger and better opportunity is 
supplied for learning the resources of the mother- 
tongue. The Kindergarten, therefore, for its full 
development, requires the bringing together of chil- 
dren in numbers ; in order that they ma)' not only 
be educated, but educate themselves and each 
other ; and requires, moreover, the surrender, on 
the mother's part, of the charge which she is, as a 
rule, unfitted to discharge, into the hands of those 
who understand and are trained for the work. 
This, then, is one of the cases in which Froebel 
takes a crude and unconditioned notion of Pesta- 



3i 8 Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 



Froebel study- 
ing the child. 



His remarks 



lozzi's, and organizes it into a clear and consist- 
ent rule of action. 

But we are still only standing on the circum- 
ference of Froebel's expansive idea of education. 
Let us now enter within the circle, and make our 
way to the centre. In order to do this effectually, 
let us form a conception of the genesis of the idea 
— an idea not less distinguished by its originality 
as a theory than by its far-extending practical 
issues. 

Let us imagine to ourselves Froebel, after pro- 
foundly studying human nature in general, both 
in books and life, and minutely observing and 
studying the nature of children ; in possession, too, 
of a large theoretical knowledge of education, as 
a means for making the best of that nature ; and, 
at the same time, impressed with a sorrowful con- 
viction, founded partly on his own experience, 
that most of what is called education, is not only 
unnatural, but anti-natural, as failing to reach the 
inner being of the child, and even counteracting 
and thwarting its spontaneous development, — let 
us, I say, imagine Froebel, thus equipped as an 
observer, taking his place amidst a number of 
children disporting themselves in the open air 
without any check upon their movements. 

After looking on the pleasant scene a while, he 
breaks out into a soliloquy: "What exuberant 
life ! What immeasurable enjoyment ! What un- 
bounded activity ! What an evolution of physical 



Froebel and the Kindergarten System, 319 

forces ! What a harmony between the inner and 

the outer life ! What happiness, health, and 

strength ! Let me look a little closer. What are these They enjoy ex- 

children doing? The air rings musically with their 

shouts and joyous laughter. Some are running, 

jumping, or bounding along, with eyes like the 

eagle's bent upon its prey, after the ball which a 

dexterous hit of the bat sent flying among them ; 

others are bending down towards the ring filled with 

marbles, and endeavoring to dislodge them from 

their position ; others are running friendly races 

with their hoops ; other again, with arms laid 

across each other's shoulders, are quietly walking 

and talking together upon some matter in which 

they evidently have a common interest. Their 

natural fun gushes out from eyes and lips. I hear Their lan- 

, - _ . . . , . guage effective 

what they say. It is simply expressed, amusing, and expressive. 

generally intelligent, and often even witty. But Their desire 

there is a small group of children yonder. They 

seem eagerly intent on some subject. What is it ? 

I see one of them has taken a fruit from his 

pocket. He is showing it to his fellows. They 

look at it and admire it. It is new to them. 

They wish to know more about it — to handle, 

smell, and taste it. The owner gives it into their 

hands ; they feel and smell, but do not taste it. 

They give it back to the owner, his right to it 

being generally admitted. He bites it, the rest 

looking eagerly on to watch the result. His face 

shows that he likes the taste; his eyes grow 



320 Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 

brighter with satisfaction. The rest desire to make I 
it pleases to his experience their own. He sees their desire, I 
*edge* n ° W " breaks or cuts the fruit in pieces, which he dis- i 
tributes among them. He adds to his own pleas- ' 
ure by sharing in theirs. Suddenly a loud shout 
from some other part of the ground attracts the j 
attention of the group, which scatters in all direc- | 
tions. Let me now consider. What does all this j 
manifold movement — this exhibition of spontane- i 
ous energy — really mean ? To me it seems to 
have a profound meaning. 

It means — 

™ (i) That there is an immense external de- 
velopment and expansion of energy of various 
kinds — physical, intellectual, and moral. Limbs, I 
senses, lungs, tongues, minds, hearts, are all at i 
work — all co-operating to produce the general 
effect. 

"(2) That activity — doing — is the common 
characteristic of this development of force. 

"(3) That spontaneity — absolute freedom from I 
outward control — appears to be both impulse and 
law to the activity. 

"(4) That the harmonious combination and 
interaction of spontaneity and activity constitute 
the happiness which is apparent. The will to do 
prompts the doing ; the doing reacts on the will. 

"(5) That the resulting happiness is indepen- 
dent of the absolute value of the exciting cause. A 
bit of stick, a stone, an apple, a marble, a hoop, 



froebel and the Kindergarten System. 321 

a top, as soon as they become objects of interest, 
call out the activities of the whole being quite as 
effectually as if they were matters of the greatest 
intrinsic value. It is the action upon them — the 
doing something with them — that invests them 
with interest. 

"(6) That this spontaneous activity generates 
happiness because the result is gained by the chil- • 
dren's own efforts, without external interference. 
What they do themselves and for themselves, in- 
volving their own personal experience, and there- 
fore exactly measured by their own capabilities, 
interests them. What another, of trained powers, 
standing on a different platform of advancement, 
does/or them, is comparatively uninteresting. If 
such a person, from whatever motive, interferes 
with their spontaneous activity, he arrests the 
movement of their forces, quenches their interest, 
at least for the moment ; and they resent the in- 
terference. 

''Such, then, appear to be manifold meanings He defines 
of the boundless spontaneous activity that I wit- 
ness. But what name, after all, must I give to 
the totality of the phenomena exhibited before me? 
I must call them Play. Play, then, is spontane- 
ous activity ending in the satisfaction of the 
natural desire of the child for pleasure — for happi- 
ness. Play is the natural, the appropriate busifiess 
a fid occupation of the child left to his own resources. 
The child that does not play is not a perfect child. 
21 



322 Froebel and the Kindergarten System, 

He wants something — sense-organ, limb, or gen- 
erally what we imply by the term health — to make 
up our ideal of a child. The healthy child plays 
— plays continually — cannot but play. 
Play appointed ' * But has this instinct for play no deeper signi- 

means for de- . ■_ ■ * r ° 

veiopment. ficance ?. Is it appointed by the Supreme Being 
merely to fill up time? — merely to form an oc- 
casion for fruitless exercise? — merely to end in 
itself? No ! I see now that it is the constituted 
means for the unfolding of all the child's powers. 
It is through play that he learns the use of his 
limbs, of all his bodily organs, and with this use 
gains health and strength. Through play he 
comes to know the external world, the physical 
qualities of the objects which surround him, their 
motions, action, and reaction upon each other, 
and the relation of these phenomena to himself; a 
knowledge which forms the basis of that which 
will be his permanent stock for life. Through 
play, involving associateship and combined action, 
he begins to recognize moral relations, to feel that 
he cannot live for himself alone, that he is a mem- 
ber of a community, whose rights he must ac- 
knowledge if his own are to be acknowledged. In 
and through play, moreover, he learns to contrive 
means for securing his ends ; to invent, construct, 
discover, investigate, to bring by imagination the 
remote near, and, further, to translate the lan- 
guage of facts into the language of words, to learn 
the conventionalities of his mother-tongue. Play, 



Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 323 

then, I see, is the means by which the entire being 
cf the child develops and grows into power, and, 
therefore, does not end in itself. 

"But an agencv which effects results like these Play to the 

child is edvta- 

is an education agency; and Flay, therefore, re- Hon. 
solves itself into education ; education which is in- 
dependent of the formal teacher, which the child 
virtually gains for and by himself. This, then, is 
the outcome of all that I have observed. The 
child, through the spontaneous activity of all his 
natural forces, is really developing and strengthen- 
ing them for future use ; he is working out his 
own education. 

"But what do I, who am constituted by the What is uart* 
demands of society as the formal educator of study 0/ the 
these children, learn from the insight I have thus 
gained into their nature? I learn this — that I 
must educate them in conformity with that nature. 
I must continue, not supersede, the course already 
begun ; my own course must be based upon it. 
I must recognize and adopt the principles in- 
volved in it, and frame my laws of action accord- 
ingly. Above all, I must not neutralize and 
deaden that spontaneity which is the mainspring 
of all the machinery ; I must rather encourage it, 
while ever opening new fields for its exercise, and 
giving it new directions. Play, spontaneous plav, 
is the education of little children ; but it is not The 
whole of their education. Their life is not to be 
made up of play. Can I not then even now 



324 Froebel and the Kindergarten System, 



Can this play 
be organized? 



Children de- 
light in move- 
ment. 



Use their 
senses. 



gradually transform their play into work, but 
work which shall look like play? — work which 
shall originate in the same or similar impulses, 
and exercise the same energies as I see employed 
in their own amusements and occupations ? Play, 
ftowever, is a random, desultory education. It 
lays the essential basis ; but it does not raise the 
superstructure. It requires to be organized for this 
purpose, but so organized that the superstructure 
shall be strictly related and conformed to the 
original lines of the foundation. 

" I see thai these children delight in movement 
— they are always walking or running, jumping, 
hopping, tossing their limbs about, and, more- 
over, they are pleased with rhythmical movement. 
I can contrive motives and means for the same 
exercise of the limbs, which shall result in in- 
creased physical power, and consequently in 
health — shall train the children to a conscious and 
measured command of their bodily functions, and 
at the same time be accompanied by the attraction 
of rhythmical sound through song or instrument. 

" I see that they use Iheir senses ; but merely at 
the accidental solicitation of surrounding circum- 
stances, and therefore imperfectly. I can con- 
trive means for a definite education of the senses, 
which shall result in increased quickness of vision, 
nearing, touch, etc. I can train the purblind eye 
to take note of delicate shades of color, the dull 
ear to appreciate minute differences of sound, 



Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 325 

li I see that they observe; but their observations They observe. 
are for the most part transitory and indefinite, and 
often, therefore, comparatively unfruitful. I can 
contrive means for concentrating their attention 
by exciting curiosity and interest, and educate 
them in the art of observing. They will thus gain 
clear and definite perceptions, bright images in 
the place of blurred ones, will learn to recognize 
the difference between complete and incomplete 
knowledge, and gradually advance from the stage - 
of merely knowing to that of knowing that they 
know. 

" / see that they invent and construct ; but often invent and con 
awkwardly and aimlessly. I can avail myself of s ru 
this instinct, and open to it a definite field of ac- 
tion. I shall prompt them to invention, and train 
them in the art of construction. The materials I 
shall use for this end will be simple ; but in com- 
bining them together for a purpose, they will em- 
ploy not only their knowledge of form, but their 
imagination of the capabilities of form. In vari- 
ous ways I shall prompt them to invent, construct, 
contrive, imitate, and in doing so develop their 
nascent taste for symmetry and beauty. 

"And so in respect to other domains of that Play trans- 

.... . i-i 11 1 t 1 t formed into 

child-action which we call play, 1 see that I can education. 
make these domains also my own. I can convert 
children's activities, energies, amusements, occu- 
pations, all that goes by the name of play, into 
instruments for my purpose, and, therefore, trans- 



326 Froebel and the Kinder garteh^Sy stem, 



His later life 
and his death.. 



Froebel ' ■$■ 
original con- 
ception. 



form play into work. This work will be education 
in the true sense of the term. The conception of 
it as such I have gained from the children them- 
selves. They have taught me how I am to teach 
them. " 

And now Froebel descends from the imaginary 
platform where he has been holding forth so long. 
I have endeavored, in what has preceded, to give 
you as clear a notion as I could of the genesis of 
his root-idea ; and I may say, in passing, that it is 
well for you that I, and not Froebel himself, have 
been the expositor ; for anything more cloudy, in- 
volved, obscure, and mystical than Froebel's own 
style of writing can hardly be conceived. It has 
been my task to keep the clouds out of sight, and 
admit upon the scene only the genial light which 
breaks out from between them. 

Having thus brought before you what I may 
call Froebel's statical theory of the education of 
little children of from three to seven years of age, 
I now proceed to describe the means by which it 
was made dynamical — that is, exhibited in prac- 
tice. But before I do so, I will add to the par- 
ticulars of his life, that after founding the Kinder- 
garten at Blankenburg, and carrying it on for 
some years, he left it to establish and organize 
others in various parts of Germany, and at last 
died at Liebenstein, June 21, 1852. Thus 
passed aw'ay a man of remarkable insight into 
human nature, and especially into children's 



Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 327 

nature, — of wonderful energy of character when 
once roused to action, — of all-pervading phil- 
anthropy — a man, I repeat, to whom alone is 
due the fruitful and original conception of avail- 
ing himself, as a teacher, of the spontaneous ac- 
tivities of children as the means of their formal 
education, and, therefore, of laying on this foun- 
dation the superstruction of their physical, intellec- 
tual, and moral life. 

And now I must endeavor to give some notice 
of the manner in which Froebel reduced his theory 
to practice. In doing this, the instances I bring 
forward must be considered as typical. If you 
admit — and you can hardly do otherwise — the 
reasonableness of the theory, as founded on the 
nature of things, you can hardly doubt that there 
is some method of carrying it out. Now, a Many processes 
method of education involves many processes, all principles. 
of which must represent more or less the principles 
which form the basis of the method. It is quite out 
of my power, for want of time, to describe the vari- 
ous processes which exhibit to us the little child 
pursuing his education by walking to rhythmic 
measure, by gymnastic exercises generally, learn- 
ing songs by heart and singing them, practising 
his senses with a definite purpose, observing the 
properties of objects, counting, getting notions of 
color and form, drawing, building with cubical 
blocks, modelling in wax or clay, braiding slips 
of various colored paper after a pattern, pricking or 



328 Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 



a series of ob- 
jects and ex- 
ercises. 



cutting forms in paper, curving wire into different 
shapes, folding a sheet of paper and gaining ele- 
mentary notions of geometry, learning the re- 
sources of the mother-tongue by hearing and re- 
lating stories, fables, etc., dramatizing, guessing 
riddles, working in the garden, etc., etc. These 
are only some of the activities naturally exhibited 
by young children, and these the teacher of young 
children is to employ for his purpose. As, how- 
ever, they are so numerous, I may well be ex- 
cused for not even attempting to enter minutely 
Froebel devised into them. But there is one series of objects and 
exercises therewith connected, expressly devised by 
Froebel to teach the art of observing, to which, as 
being typical, I will now direct your attention. 
He calls these objects, which are gradually and in 
orderly succession introduced to the child's notice, 
Gifts — a pleasant name, which is, however, a 
mere accident of the system : they might equally 
well be called by any other name. As introduc- 
tory to the series, a ball made of wool, of say of 
scarlet color, is placed before the baby. It is 
rolled along before him on the table, thrown along 
the floor, tossed into the air, suspended from a 
string, and used as a pendulum, or spun round on 
its axis, or made to describe a circle in space, etc. 
It is then given into his hand; he attempts to 
grasp it, fails ; tries again, succeeds ; rolls it along 
the floor himself, tries to throw it, and, in short, 
exercises every power he has upon it, always 



The scarlet 
ball. 



Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 329 

pleased, never wearied in doing something or other 
with it. This is play, but it is play which resolves 
itself into education. He is gaining notions of Gains notions 

, - . . , „ of form, color, 

color, form, motion, action and reaction, as well etc. 
as of muscular sensibility. And all the while the 
teacher associates words with things and actions, 
and by constantly employing words in their proper 
sense and in the immediate presence of facts, 
initiates the child in the use of his mother-tongue. 
Thus, in a thousand ways, the scarlet ball fur- 
nishes sensations and perceptions for the sub- 
stratum of the mind, and suggests fitting language Learns lan- 
to express them ; and even the baby appears before 
us as an observer, learning the properties of things 
by personal experience. 

Then comes the first Gift. It consists of six The first gift, 
soft woollen balls of six different colors, three taught. 
primary and three secondary. One of these is 
recognized as like, the others as unlike, the ball 
first known. The laws of similarity and discrim- 
ination are called into action ; sensation and per- 
ception grow clearer and stronger. I cannot 
particularize the numberless exercises that are to 
be got out of the various combinations of these 
six balls. 

The second Gift consists of a sphere, cube, and The second 
cylinder made of hard wood. What was a ball is taught 
before is now called a sphere. The different ma- 
terial gives rise to new experiences ; a sensation, 
that of hardness, for instance, takes the place of 



33° Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 

softness ; while varieties of form suggest resem- 
blance and contrast. Similar experiences of like- 
ness and unlikeness are suggested by the behavior 
of these different objects. The easy rolling of the 
sphere, the sliding of the cube, the rolling as well 
as sliding of the cylinder, illustrate this point. 
Then the examination of the cube, especially its 
surfaces, edges, and angles, which any child can 
observe for himself, suggest new sensations and 
their resulting perceptions. At the same time, 
notions of space, time, form, motion, relativity in 
general, take their place in the mind, as the un- 
shaped blocks which, when fitly compacted to- 
gether, will lay the firm foundation of the under- 
standing. These elementary notions, as the very 
groundwork of mathematics, will be seen to have 
their use as time goes on. 
The third gift, The third Gift is a large cube, making a whole, 
taught. a which is divisible into eight small ones. The form 

is recognized as that of the cube before seen ; the 
size is different. But the new experiences consist 
in notions of relativity — of the whole in its relation 
to the parts, of the parts in their relation to the 
whole ; and thus the child acquires the notion and 
the names, and both in immediate connection with 
the sensible objects, of halves, quarters, eighths, 
and of how many of the small divisions make one 
of the larger. But in connection with the third 
Gift a new faculty is called forth — Imagination — 
and with it the instinct of construction is awak- 



Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 331 

ened. The cubes are mentally transformed into 
blocks : and with them building commences. The 
constructive faculty suggests imitation, but rests 
not in imitation. It invents, it creates. Those 
eight cubes, placed in a certain relation to each 
other, make a long seat, or a seat with a back, or 
a throne for the Queen ; or again, a cross, a door- 
way, etc. Thus does even play exhibit the char- 
acteristics of art, and " conforms" (to use Bacon's 
words) ' ' the outward show of things to the desires 
of the mind ;" and thus the child, as I said before, 
not merely imitates, but creates. And here I 
may remark that the mind of the child is far less 
interested in that which another mind has em- 
bodied in ready-prepared forms than in the forms 
which he conceives, and gives outward expression 
to, himself. He wants to employ his own mind, 
and his whole mind, upon the object, and does 
not thank you for attempting to deprive him of his 
rights. 

The fourth, fifth, and sixth Gifts consist of the The other gifts, 

1 • 1 1. • i ! • y ^ 11 , ■, and what the y 

cube variously divided into solid parallelopipeds, teach. 

or brick-shaped forms, and into smaller cubes and 
prisms. Observation is called on with increasing 
strictness, relativity appreciated, and the oppor- 
tunity afforded for endless manifestations of con- 
structiveness. And all the while impressions are 
forming in the mind which, in due time, will 
bear geometrical fruits, and fruits, too, of aesthetic 
culture. The dawning sense of the beautiful, as 



332 Froebel and the Kindergarten System, 

well as of the true, is beginning to gain consistency 
and power. 

I cannot further dwell on the numberless modes 
of manipulation of which these objects are capable, 
nor enter further into the groundwork of princi- 
ples on which their efficacy depends. 
objections. It is needless to say that various objections have 

been made to Froebel's method, especially by 
those whose ignorance of the laws of mental de- 
velopment disqualifies them, in fact, for giving an 
opinion on it at all, and also by others, whose 
earnest work at various points of the superstruc- 
ture so absorbs their energies that they have none 
to spare for considering the foundation. But 
even among those who have considered the work- 
ing of mental laws, though in many cases from the 
standpoint of a favorite theory, there are some who 
still doubt and object. I will attempt to deal with 
i. Too much de- one or two of their objections. It is said, for in- 
"chiidren . ' stance, without proof, that we demand too much 
from little children, and, with the best intentions, 
take them out of their depth. This might be true, 
no doubt, if the system of means adopted had any 
other basis than the nature of the children • if we 
attempted theoretically, and without regard to that 
nature, to determine ourselves what they can and 
what they cannot do ; but when we constitute 
spontaneity as the spring of action, and call on 
them to do that, and that only, which they can 
do, which they do of their own accord when they 



Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 333 

are educating themselves, it is clear that the ob- 
jection falls to the ground. The child who teaches 
himself never can go out of his depth ; the work 
he actually does is that which he has strength to 
do ; the load he carries cannot but be fitted to the 
shoulders that bear it, for he has gradually ac- 
cumulated its contents by his own repeated exer- 
tions. This increasing burden is, in short, the 
index and result of his increasing powers, and 
commensurate with them. The objector in this 
case, in order to gain even a plausible foothold for 
his objection, must first overthrow the radical 
principle, that the activities, amusements, and oc- 
cupations of the child, left to himself, do indeed 
constitute his earliest education, and that it is an 
education which he virtually gives himself. 

Another side of this objection, which is not un- »■ incapacity 

J or stupidity of 

frequently presented to us, derives its plausibility the child. 
from the assumed incapacity of children. The 
objector points to this child or that, and de- 
nounces him as stupid and incapable. Can the 
objector, however, take upon himself to declare 
that this or that child has not been made stupid 
even by the very means employed to teach him ? 
The test, however, is a practical one : Can the 
child play ? If he can play, in the sense which I 
have given to the word, he cannot be stupid. In 
his play he employs the very faculties which are 
required for his formal education. "But he is 
stupid at his books." If this is so, then the logi- 



metnory. 



334 Proebel and the Kindergarten System. 

cal conclusion is, that the books have made him 
stupid, and you, the objector, who have miscon- 
ceived his nature, and acted in direct contradiction 
to it, are yourself responsible for his condition. 
3 . Want of "But he has no memory. He cannot learn 

what I tell him to learn." No memory ! Cannot 
learn ! Let us put that to the test. Ask him about 
the pleasant holiday a month ago, when he went 
nutting in the woods. Does he remember noth- 
ing about the fresh feel of the morning air, the 
joyous walk to the wood, the sunshine which 
streamed about his path, the agreeable compan- 
ions with whom he chatted on the way, the in- 
cidents of the expedition, the climb up the trees, 
the bagging of the plunder ? Are all these matters 
clean gone out of his mind? "Oh no, he re- 
members things like these." Then he has a 
memory, and a remarkably good one. He re- 
members, because he was interested ; and if you 
wish him to remember your lessons, you must 
make them interesting. He will certainly learn 
what he takes an interest in. 

I need not deal with other objections. They 
all resolve themselves into the category of ignorance 
of the nature of the child. When public opinion 
shall demand such knowledge from teachers as 
the essential condition of their taking in hand so 
delicate and even profound an art as that of train- 
ing children, all these objections will cease to have 
any meaning. 



Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 335 
As I have doubtless appeared throughout this The author's 

, , . -ill notions the 

lecture as not only the expositor but the advocate same as 
of Froebel's principles, it is only right to say that 
this has arisen from the fact that, without knowing 
it, I have been myself for many years preaching 
from the same text. My close acquaintance with 
Froebel's theory, and especially with his root-idea, 
is comparatively recent. But when I had studied 
it as a theory, and witnessed something of its 
practice, I could not but see at once that I had 
been throughout an unconscious disciple, as it 
were, of the eminent teacher. The plan of my 
own course of lectures on the Science and Art of 
Education was, in fact, constructed in thought be- 
fore I had at all grasped the Froebelian idea ; and 
was, in that sense, independent of it. But every 
one who hears my lectures — which are founded on 
the natural history of the child — must be at once 
aware that Froebel's notions and mine are virtually 
the same. 

The Kindergarten is gradually making its way spread of Kin- 

-r> 1 1 • 1 ii- r dergarten prin- 

in England, without the achievement as yet of any dpies. 
eminent success ; but in Switzerland, Holland, 
Italy, and the United States, as well as in Ger- 
many, it is rapidly advancing. Wherever the 
principles of education, as distinguished from its 
practice, are a matter of study and earnest thought, 
there it prospers. ' Wherever, as in England for 
the most part, the practical alone is considered, 
and where teaching is thought to be "as easy as 



336 Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 

lying," any system of education founded on psy- 
chological laws must be tardy in its progress. 

I should be glad to think that I have by this 
lecture either kindled an interest hitherto unfelt in 
the Kindergarten, or supplied those who felt the 
interest before, with arguments to justify it. 



; 



Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 337 



FROEBEL AND THE KINDERGARTEN SYS- 
TEM OF EDUCATION. 

ANALYSIS. 

PAGE 

Froebel's claim to distinction 307 

He utilized children's activities 308 

His childhood 308 

Influenced by Nature 309 

His school life 309 

As a forester 310 

At the University 311 

In other occupations 311 

Becomes a teacher , . . . 312 

With Pestalozzi 313 

At the University again 313 

Establishes a Kindergarten 314 

Meaning of the name 314 

Would begin with the child at three years of age. . . 315 

The child's experience must be widened 317 

Froebel studies the child at play ••.... 318 

(1) Remarks his activity 318 

(2) His enjoyment of activity , 319 

(3) Effecting of his language 319 

(4) His desire for knowledge 319 

(5) His pleasure in imparting knowledge 320 

Concludes play to have a profound meaning 320 

He defines play 321 

Sees it is meant for development 322 

Sees it means education for the child 323 



33& Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 



PAGk 



Learns how to base a system that shall be in accord- 
ance with the child's out-going 323 

Learns how to organize play to make it educative. . 324 

(1) He sees children love movement, and uses 

movements 324 

(2) Sees they use their senses, and uses means 

to employ them also 324 

(3) Sees they observe, and contrives means to 

arrest their attention and give clear per- 
ceptions 325 

(4) Sees they invent and construct, and will avail 

of that instinct 325 

In general causes play to educate 326 

Froebel's later life and death 326 

His conception original 327 

How he reduced his discovery to practice 327 

Many processes to represent principles 327 

Devised a series of objects and exercises 328 

The scarlet ball — its office 328 

The first gift and what is taught 329 

The second gift and what is taught 329 

The third gift and what is taught 330 

The other gifts and what they teach 331 

Objections " 332 

(1) Too much demanded of the child 332 

(2) Incapacity of the child 333 

(3) Want of memory , 334 

The author has long believed in Froebel's notions. . 335 
Spread of the Kindergarten .- 335 



INDEX. 



Art tells what to do, 37 ; is man's work added to nature's, 38. 

Art of education, what ? 105 ; art of education, 193. 

Ascham's method of teaching, 149 ; his method a good one, 153,, 

Arnold's method of teaching, 248. 

Body and mind interdependent, 33. 

Child is the pupil of nature, 31 ; a practical inquirer after knowl- 
edge, 35 ; a discoverer, 35 ; teaches himself, 35 ; acquires 
knowledge and invigorates his powers, 35 ; must get knowl- 
edge for himself, 45 ; body should be trained, 80 ; his la- 
tent powers overlooked, 123 ; has capacity to teach him- 
self, 134 ; is organized for action, 187 ; his method of learn- 
ing must be followed, 206 ; his lessons are from nature, 
207 ; he learns to do by doing, 210 ; his education not be- 
gun at school, 235. 

Cramming underrates pupil's powers, 199. 

Combe on physical education, 79. 

Diesterweg declares elementary teaching must be analytic, 298,, 

Education — belief there is no science of, 21 ; Germany's power 
connected with, 22 ; Germany's commercial power due to, 
23 ; needed to appreciate education, 25 ; nothing to be 
learned about it, say some, 25 ; is a branch of psychology, 
29 ; a system of, in constant operation before us, 31 ; defi- 
nition of, 37 ; derivation of term, 60 ; defined carefully, 62 ; 
is a measure of civilization, 64 ; aims to organize the forces 
given by nature, 64 ; will rank higher when teachers study 
it, 66 ; may be pursued rationally, 81 ; at low ebb, 95 ; art 
of, defined, 140 ; natural, is what ? 188 ; defined again, 192 ; 
study of, will benefit most gifted teachers, 230. 

Educator's, the, function, 189. 

Educators, mostly amateurs, 94 ; need education, 93 ; shoaid 
know ivhy, 72. 



346 Index. 

Explanations not needed, 109 ; hinder the child, 218. 

Exercise involves repetition, 34. 

Faculty grows by exercise, 33. 

Facts presented to pupil must be appropriate, no. 

Froebel devoted himself to the educative foundation, 307 ; as- 
certained for the child how to educate him, 308 ; felt in 
him the instinct of construction when a child, 309 ; a 
thoughtful, dreamy child, 310 ; to teach he studied nature 
in himself, 312 ; visited Pestalozzi, 313 ; provides for ac- 
tivities of childhood, 315; felt that the family circle was not 
broad enough for the child, 316 ; the kindergarten gives 
children opportunity, 317 ; saw that doing was the charac- 
teristic of childhood, 320 ; that spontaneity was the law of 
activity, 320 ; that happiness came from spontaneity and 
activity, 320 ; that play is nature's plan of educating, 322 ; 
he planned to employ play to educate, 327; invented 
"gifts," 326; these give notions of color, form, motion, 
action, reaction, time, relativity, number, divisibility, con- 
struction, and creation, 328, 329 ; his method supposed by 
some to demand too much from children, 332; objectors to it 
are ignorant, 324. 

Good method of teaching involves what ? 144. 

Good method of teaching according to Marcel, 145. 

Henslow's method of teaching science, 261. 

Huxley quoted on science of teaching, 269. 

Instruction, definition of, 61. 

Instructor that is not an educator also, fails, 61. 

Ignorance of nature's method fatal, 236. 

Jacotot thinks teachers may teach what they do not know, n; 
described, 166; his method of teaching, 172. 

Jesuits put best teachers in lowest classes, 50. 

Knowledge must be the pupil's own, 47; must come first hand 
to pupil, 47; knowing a subject not enough, 239. 

Kemshead's, Dr., method, 266. 

Lesson efficient when pupil does the work, 40. 

Learning is self-teaching, 106. 

Laws of intellectual action, 190. 

Learn — its Etymology, 201. 

Man may improve on Nature's method, 114. 



Index. 34 1 

Mind and body interdependent, 33. 

Mill on Education, 83. 

Moral education carried on by Nature, 87 ; must develop self- 
action, 90. 

Moral forces may be trained, 88. 

Method of teaching defined, 183. 

Method of teaching more important than the thing taught, 242. 

Multiplication table, learning by rote condemned, 246. 

Nature, has a system of education, 31 ; is the educator, 31 ; 
makes exercise effectual, 34 ; her method repudiates cram- 
ming, 36; her education explained, 36; how she teaches, 107; 
does not explain, no ; her method right, but should be sys- 
tematized, 112; she aims at immediate effects, 113; she is 
an educator, 188; employs the analytical method, 208; her 
method violated in teaching alphabet, 212. 

Objectors to the kindergarten ignorant, 334. 

Payne, Mr. Joseph, seems raised up to investigate education, 3; 
first of Jacotot's disciples, 7 ; preached the ' New Educa- 
tion', 7 ; believed education should be studied scientifically, 
10 ; strove to make education a reality, 15 ; a hard student, 
18. 

Pedagogy, definition of, 59. 

Practical and scientific man, the, the same, 68. 

Physical education needed by teacher, 77. 

Pestalozzi — description of, 157 ; began with things, 160 ; criticism 
of, 164 ; his influence greater than any other educator, 278 ; 
is underestimated yet, 275 ; supposed to be merely interested 
in elementary teaching, 277 ; generally considered a philan- 
thropist, 276; teaches that the teacher must have a heart, 282; 
brought the moral sense of his pupils into activity by action, 
284 ; went from the near to the remote, 285 ; saw that in- 
tellectual training helped moral training, 286 ; believed there 
was a natural order for development, 287 ; would exercise 
pupils on the realities of life, 288 ; not skilful in applying 
principles. 289 ; had an instinct for teaching, 290 ; his great 
principle, 293 ; depended on observation, 293. 

Penmanship may train mind, 85. 

Personal experience the condition of development, 191. 

Profession, a, defined, 227. 



342 Index. 

Primary teachers should be most skilful, 232. 

Procedure of true teacher, 243. 

Pupil using psychological powers, 82 ; victimized for two years, 
98 ; teaches himself, 105 ; must not have confused ideas, 
132 ; his method of learning, 143. 

Quackery to teach without knowing how, 231. 

Reading taught by Jacotot's method, 176. 

Reformers in education, 156. 

Repetition ends in habits and clear perception, 34. 

Routine teaching is bad for pupils, 70 ; makes slaves, 72. 

Rousseau on physical education, 80. 

Rules, learning of, do not economize time of child, 219. 

Savage does not want education, 63. 

Scientific teacher distinguished, how, 115. 

Science of education not yet constructed, 69 ; assumes the teacher 
to study education, 104. 

Science tells what and why, 37 ; how it is learned, 262. 

Self-teaching, illustrated, 115; it gives pleasure, 121; renders 
pupils independent, 121 ; renders them inventive, 122 ; opin- 
ion of Burke on, 122 ; views of Prof. Tyndall on, 124; be- 
gin with facts in, 126 ; analytical method employed in, 126 ; 
gives power, 127 ; pupil goes from known to unknown in, 
127 ; the pupil gains knowledge in, 128 ; habit of self-direc- 
tion gained in, 128 ; Rousseau quoted, 136 ; Wilson quoted 
as to, 169 ; is a central principle, 192 ; its principle, 217 ; 
makes the most of the native powers, 221. 

Teacher must master principles, 15 ; is indifferent to know 
about education, 25 ; worst ones best satisfied with them- 
selves, 26 ; can but stimulate and direct, 27 ; to stimulate 
the pupil, 34 ; demanding attention wrong, 39 ; wrong to 
impart knowledge, 40 ; not to begin with definitions, 42 ; 
must begin with facts, 42 ; may tell what child cannot dis- 
cover, 42 ; must know the mind, 43 ; his work in its true 
sense, 44 ; must know, but not because he has to commu- 
nicate, 45 ; must not tell the child, etc., 45 ; should study 
children, 49 ; should study Locke, Bain, etc., 49; (primary) 
needs to study education, 49 ; should know methods of 
best teachers, 50 ; to convert natural power into organized 
power, 65 ; should know work of other teachers, 74 ; ig- 



Index. 343 

norant of Pestalozzi, etc., 75; should know the child, 76; 
ignorant of psychology fails, 84 ; should know moral phi- 
losophy, 88 ; will learn from his pupils, 89 ; the business of, 
91 ; how he will advance, 91 ; the need to be taught, 96 ; 
needs professional training, 97 ; part or duty of, what ? 106 ; 
his instruction only valuable that is assimilated, 11 1 ; di- 
rects the mental machinery, 119 ; must not begin with gen- 
eralization, 128 ; must not teach science from a book, 129 ; 
must not give definitions, 129 ; must not proceed without 
the attention of pupil, 129 ; must not give words instead of 
things, 131 ; his art good if he knows the science, 140 ; his 
art is to get the pupil to think, 141 ; his power measured 
by the exertion of pupil, 141 ; his method is to stimulate 
pupil, 142 ; must aim at " multa," 154 ; aim at the majority 
of pupils, 155 ; is to learn from child how to teach, 189 ; the 
knowledge he needs, 204 ; must know pupil's mind, 205 ; 
his function, 232 ; but continues the work Nature began, 
235 ; may be too profound in knowledge, 240 ; must know 
learner's position, 239 ; true, studies psychology, 244 ; must 
present facts and things, 245 ; superintends pupil in learn- 
ing science, 259 ; must remove impediments, 302 ; must 
stimulate pupil, 302 ; provide materials, 302 ; 
Teaching, in its true sense, 44; described by Dr. Temple, 135 ; 
spirit of, in all methods, 198 ; when skilful imparts pleas- 
ure, 234 ; fancy for, no warrant, 237 ; much of it is mere- 
ly cramming, 241 ; not in accord with science condemned, 

245- 
Text-books hinder, 268. 
Things should be presented to children, 134. 
Training of teachers in England, 99. 
Work, all, must be done by pupil, 135. 
Youmans on physical education. 7Q. 



The Best Educational Periodicals. 



The School Journal 

is published weekly at $2.50 a year and is in Its 25th year. It s the 
oldest, best known and widest circulated educational weekly i 1 thj 
U. S. The Journal is filled with ideas that will surely advai» ce the 
teachers' conception of education. The best brain work on th work 
of professional teaching: is found in it — not theoretical essay-., nor 
pieces scissored out of other journals. The Monthly School Board 
issue is a symposium of most interesting material relating t o new 
buildings, heating, and ventilation, school law, etc., etc, 

The Primary School 

is published monthly from September to June at $1.00 a year It L 
the ideal paper for primary teachers, being devoted almost exccsively 
to original primary methods and devices. Several entirely n j.v fea- 
tures this year of great value. 

The Teachers- Institute 

is published monthly, at $1.00 1 year. It is edited in the same spirit 
and from the same standpoint as The Journal, and has ever since it 
was started in 1878 been the m >st popular educational monthly published, 
circuliting in every state. It is finely printed and crowded with illus- 
trations made specially for it. Every study taught by the teacher is 
covered in each issue. The large chart supplements with each issue 
are very popular. 

EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS. 

This is not a paper, but a series of small monthly volumes, $1.00 a 
year, that bear on Professional Teaching. It is useful for those who 
want to study the foundations of education ; for Normal Schools, 
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desire to teach professionally you will want it. Handsome paper 
covers, 64 pp. each month. The History, Science, Methods, and 
Civics of education are discussed each month, and it also contains all 
of the N. Y. State Examination Questions and Answers. 

OUR TIMES 

gives a resume of the imoortant news of the month — not the murders, 

the scandals, etc., but the news that bears upon the progress of the 

-vorld and specially written for the school room. It is the brightest 

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* ' can be afforded by every pupil. 30 cents a year. Club rates, 35 cents. 

* # * Select the paper suited to your needs and send for a free 
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E.L. KELLOQQ & CO., New York and Chicago. 



Best Books for Teachers, 

Classified List under Subjects. 

To aid teachers to procure the books best suited to their purpose, we 
grive beiow a list of our publications classified under subjects. The division 
is sometimes a difficult one to make, so that we have in many cases placed 
the same book under several titles; for instance, Curiie's Early Education 
appears under Principles and Practice of Education, and also 
Primary Education. Recent books are starred, thus * 

HISTOBY OF EDUCATION, GREAT EDTJ- „ A „ Our ftr 

n&Tn-Dc vvn HetalL Price to Mall 
l/AiUi&s, &J.U Teachers Extra 

Allen's Historic Outlines of Education, • • paper .15 pd. 

Autobiography of FroebeL d. .60 -40 .05 

Browning's Aspects of Education Best edition* cloth .25 .SO .03 

" Educational Theories. Best edition. cL .50 .40 .05 

•Educational Foundations, bound vol. »9l- , 92, paper .60 pd. 

• " ** 1 83-'83 > cL 1 00 pd. 
Kellogg's Life of PestalozzI, - paper ,15 pd. 
Lang's Comenius, ------ paper .15 pd. 

" Basedow, ------- paper .15 pd. 

• ** Rousseau and his "Emile** - — •-. - paper »15 pd. 

* ** Horace Mann, - - paper .15 pd. 

* *• Great Teachers of Four Centuries, - ol .28 «20 M 

• ** Herbart and His Outlines of the Science 

of Education. ----- ch .25 .20 .03 

Phelps' Life of David P. Page, « paper .15 pd. 

Quick's Educational Reformers, Best edition, - cL LOG .80 j08 

♦Reinhart's History of Education, ~ d. JS .80 A 

PBINCIPLES OP EDUCATION. 

Carter's Artificial Stupidity In 8ehool, - - paper .15 pd. 

♦Educational Foundations, bound vol. "Ol-'SS, paper .60 pd, 

* u " *» •aa-'ea, cL i.oo pd. 

Fitch's Improvement in Teaching, - paper «15 pd. 

*Hall (G. S.) Contents of Children's Minds, - cL .25 .20 .03 

Huntington's Unconscious Tuition, - - - paper .15 pd. 

Payne's Lectures on Science and Art of Education^ cL LOO .80 .08 

Reinhart's Principles of Education, - cL .25 .20 .03 

♦Spencer's Education. Best edition. - ci. 1.00 .80 .10 

Perez's First Three Years of Childhood, - - cL 1.50 1.20 .18 

♦Rein's Outlines of Pedagogics, - cL .75 .60 .08 

Tate's Philosophy of Education. Best edition. - cL 160 1,20 J.0 

♦Teachers' Manual Series, 24 nos. ready, each, paper .15 pd. 

PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION. 

Allen's Mind Studies for Young Teachers, - A. J50 .40 M 

Allen's Temperament in Education, - . - • si. .50 .40 .05 

•Kellogg's Outlines of Psychology, - paper .25 .20 03. 

Perez's First Three Years of Childhood. Best edition, cl. i.50 1.20 .10 

ooper's Apperception, Best edition* » «L J& ,20 .03 

rsjch'i Teachers' Psychology, - - ■ - • 4 US 1.00 M 



v& 



GENERAL METHODS AN© SCHOOL MANAOEMEK1. 

£urr!e's Early Education, •«..•«• cL L25 1.00 

IPitcn's Art of Questioning, - paper .15 

" Art of [Securing Attention • •" - paper .16 

•* Lectures on Teaching, - cl. 1.2f» 1.00 

Gladstone's Object Teaching, - paper .15 

Hughes' Mistakes in Teacning. Beit edition. • cl. .50 .40 

" Securing and Retaining Attention, Best ed. cl. .50 .40 

** How to Keep Order. - paper ,15 

Keliogg's School Management. - cl. .75 .60 

McMurry's How to Conduct the Recitation, - paper .15 

♦Parker's Talks on Pedagogics. cL 1.50 1.30 

** Talks on TeachiDg, - cL 1.25 1.00 

* 4 Practical Teacher, - cl. L50 1.20 

♦Page's Theory and Practice of Teaching, - cl. .80 .64 

Patridge's Quincy Methods, illustrated, - - cl. 1.75 1.40 

Quick's How to Train the Memory, - paper .15 

♦Rein's Pedagogics, --.-••• cl. .75 .60 

•Keinhart's Principles of Education, - cl. .25 .20 

♦ u Civics in Education, - cl. .25 .20 

♦Rooper's Object Teaching, - cl. .25 .20 

Sidgwick's Stimulus in School, • paper .15 

Shaw and Donneh's School Devices, - cL 1.25 1.00 

South wick's Quiz Manual of Teaching, - cL 75 .60 

Yonge's Practical Work in School, • paper ,15 

METHODS IN SPECIAL SUBJECTS. 

Augsburg's Easy Drawings for Geog. Class, - paper .50 .40 

** Easy Things to Draw, * - - paper .30 .24 

♦Burnz Step by Step Primer, - .25 

Calkins' How to Teach Phonics, - cL. .50 .40 

Dewey's fciow to Teacn Manners, - cl. .50 .40 

Gladstone's Object Teaching, - paper .15 

Hughes' How to Keep Order, - paper .15 

♦Des' A Class in Geometry ----- ,30. 24 

Johnson's Education by Doing, - d. .50 .40 

*Kel logo's How to Write Compositions - - paper 15 

Keliogg's Geography by Map Drawing - cl. .50 .40 

♦Picture Language Cards, 2 sets, each, - - .30 

Seeley's Gru be Method of Teaching Arithmetic, cl. 1.00 .80 

** Grube Idea in Teaching Arithmetic - cl. ,30 .24 

Smith's Rapid Practice Cards, - - - 82 sets, each .50 

Woodhull's Easy Experiments in Science, - cl. .50 .40 

PRIMARY AND KINDERGARTEN 

Caikins' How to Teach Phonics, - cl. .50 .40 

Currie's Early Education, ----- cL 1.25 1,00 

Gladstone's Object Teaching, - p.iper .1 5 

Auiohiography of Froebel, - - - - cl. .50 .40 

Hoffman's Kindergarten Gifts, • paper .15 

Johnson^ Education by Doing, • ci. .50 .40 

♦Kilburn's Manual of Elementary Teaching - 1.50 1.20 

Parker's Talks on Teaching, - cl. 1.25 1.00 

Patridere's Quincy Methods, - d. 1.75 1.40 

Rooper's Object Teaching, - - - - - cl. .25 .20 

8eeley's Grube Method of Teaching Arithmetic, c*. LOO ,80 

" Grube Idea in Primary Arithmetic, - cL .80 .24 

^BrtUi?* 1 ? First learn at BcJumk - } « * .*? 80 



52 

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^tier's Argument for Manual Training, - - papei .15 »d. 

•Larsson's Text-Book of Sloyd, . cL 1.50 1.80 .15 

Love's Industrial Education, - e\ 1.50 1.20 .12 

♦Upham's Fifty Lessous in Woodworking, - cL .50 .40 .05 

QUESTION BOOKS FOB TEACHERS, 

Analytical Question Series. Geography, - cL .50 .40 .05 

• ** u C. 8. History, - cL .50 .40 .05 

** * - * Grammar, - cL .50 .40 .C5 

♦Educational Foundations, bound vol. l 91-*92, paper .60 pd. 

♦ • M •OS-IB, d. l.oo pd. 

N. T. State Examination Quest ons, - ol LOO e 80 .08 

♦Shaw's National Question Book Newly revised* 1.75 pd. 

SoutDwick's Handy Helps, ----- ©L 1.00 .80 .08 

Southwick's Quiz Manual of Teaching. Best edition, el. .75 .60 .05 

PHYSICAL EDUCATION and SCHOOL HYGIENE, 

GrofTs School Hygiene, --..«. paper .15 pd. 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

BlaiMe On Self Culture, ---'-.- ©L JB .20 .08 

Fitch's Improvement in Education, - paper .15 pd. 

Gardner's Town and Country School Buildings, cl. 2156 2.00 .12 

Lubbock's Best 100 Books, - - -•-.'- paper .20 pd. 

Pooler's N. Y. School Law, ---■•.■■* cL .80 .24 .03 

Portrait of Washington, ----- 5.00 pd. 

•Walsh's Great tiulers of the World, - - - <& .50 .40 .05 

Wilbelm's Student's Calendar, - - - - paper .80 .24 .03 

Bas-Iteliefs of 12 Authors, each, ---.-' l.oo pd. 

SINGING AND DIALOGUE BOOKS. 

•Arbor Day, How to Celebrate It, «» paper .25 pd. 

Reception Day Series, 6 Nos. iSet $1.40 postpaid.) Each. .30 .24 .03 

Song Treasures. ------- paper ,15 pd. 

♦Best Primary Songs, new ------- .15 pd. 

♦Washington's Birthday, How to Celebrate It, - paper .28 pd. 

SCHOOL APPARATUS. 

Smith's Rapid Practice Arithmetic Cards, (33 sets), Each, .50 pd. 
" Standard " Manikin. (Sold by subscription.) Price on application. 

" Man Wonderful " Manikin, - 4.00 pd. 
Standard Blackboard Stencils, 500 different nos., 

from 5 to 50 cents each. Senc\ for special catalogue. 

44 Unique " Pencil Sharpener, - 1.50 10 

♦Russell's Solar Lantern, ----- 25.00 pd. 
Standard Physician's Manikin. (Sold by subscription.) 

I^T* 100 page classified, illustrated, descriptive Catalogue of the above 

and many other Method Books, Teachers' Helps, sent free. 100 page Cat- 

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SEND ALL ORDERS TO 

50 E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. 

Welch's Talks on Psychology Applied to 

Teaching. By A. S. Welch, LL.D., Ex-Pres. of the Iowa Agricul- 
tural College at Aines, Iowa. Cloth, 16mo, 136 pp. Price, 50 
cents; to teachers, 40 cents; by mail, 5 cents extra. 

This little book has been written for the purpose of helping the 
teacher in doing more effective work in the school-room. The instruc- 
tors in our schools are familiar with the branches they teach, but de- 
ficient in knowledge of the mental powers whose development they sick 
to promote. But no proficiency that does not include the study of mind, 
can ever qualify for the work of teaching. The teacher must comprehend 
fully not only the objects studied by the learner, but the efforts put forth 
and in studying them, the effect of these efforts on the faculty exerted, 
their residti in the form of accurate knowledge. It is urged by eminent 
educators everywhere that a knowledge of the branches to be taught, 
and a knoivkdge of the mind to be trained thereby, are equally essential 
to successful teaching. 

WHAT IT CONTAINS. 

Part I.— Chapter 1. Mind Growth and its Helps. Chapter 2.— The Feel- 
ings. Chapter 3.— The Will and the Spontaneities. Chapter 4.— Sensation. 
Chapter 5.— Sense Perception, Gathering Concepts. Chapter 6.— Memory 
and Conception. Chapter 7.— Analysis and Abstraction. Chapter 8.— Im- 
agination and Classification.— Chapter 9. — Judgment and Reasoning, the 
Thinking Faculties. 

Part II.— Helps to Mind Growth. Chapter 1. — Education and the Means 
of Attaining it. Chapter 2.— Training of the Senses. Chapter 3— Reading, 
Writing, and Spelling. Chapter 4.— Composition, Elementary Grammar, 
Abstract Arithmetic, etc. 

*** This book, as will be seen from the contents, deals with the subject 
differently from Dr. Jerome Allen's "Mind Studies for Young Teachers," 
(same price) recently published by us. 

FROM THOSE WHO HAVE SEEN IT. 

Co. Insp. Dearness, London, Canada.— " Here find it the most lucid and 
practical introduction to mental science I have ever seen." 

Florida School Journal.—" Is certainly the best adapted and most de- 
sirable for the mass of teachers." 
Penn. School Journal.— " Earnest teachers will appreciate it." 
Danville, Ind., Teacher and Examiner.— "We feel certain this book has 
a mission among the primary teachers." 

Iowa Normal Monthly.—" The best for the average teacher." 
Prof. H. H. Seeley, Iowa State Normal School.— "I feel that you have 
done a very excellent thing for the teachers. Am inclined to think we will 
use it in some of our classes." 
Science, N. Y.— "Has been written from an educational point of view." 
Education, Boston.—" Aims to help the teacher in the work of the school- 
room." 

Progressive Teacher.— "There is no better work." 
Ev-Gov. Dysart, Iowa.—" My first thought was, ' What a pity it could not 
he in the hapds of every teacher in Iowa." 



SEND ALT, ORDERS TO 

E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK AND CHICAGO. 

Tbfr First Three Years of Childhood. 

An exhaustive study of the psychology of children. By 
Bernard Perez. Edited and translated by Alice M. 
Christie, translator of "Child and Child Nature," with 
an introduction by James Sully, M. A., author of " Out- 
lines of Psychology," etc. 12mo, cloth, 340 pp. Pri<y% 
$1.50 ; to teachers, $1.20 ; by mail, 10 cts. extra. 

This is a comprehensive treatise on the psychology of child- 
hood, and is a practical study of the human mind, not full 
formed and equipped with knowledge, but as nearly as 
possible, ab origine — before habit, environment, and educa- 
tion have asserted their sway and made their permanent 
modifications. The writer looks into all the phases of child 
activity. He treats exhaustively, and in bright Gallic style, 
of sensations, instincts, sentiments, intellectual tendencies, 
the will, the faculties of aesthetic and moral senses of young 
children. He shows how ideas of truth and falsehood arise 
in little minds, how natural is imitation and how deep is 
credulity. He illustrates the development of imagination and 
the elaboration of new concepts through judgment, abstrac- 
tion, reasoning, and other mental methods. It is a book that 
has been long wanted by all who are engaged in teaching, 
and especially by all who have to do with the education and 
training of children. 

Our edition has a new index of special value and is beauti- 
fully printed and elegantly and durably bound. 

Prof. John Fiske, Harvard University : " It seems to me an ex- 
cellent book and very much needed." 

John Bascom, President University of Wisconsin: "A work of 
marked interest to psychologists and intelligent parents." 

B. A. Hinsdale, ex-Snpt. Schools, Cleveland, Ohio : " I have exam- 
ined the book with much pleasure and profit, and I sincerely hope you 
may be successful in introducing it generally among the teachers of the 
country." 

Edwin C. Hewitt, President Illinois State Normal University: 
"You have rendered an excellent service in bringing the book before 
the public. I hope both your house and the public will profit by a 
large sale." 

G. Stanley Hall, Professor of Psychology and Pedagogy, Johns 
Hopkins University: "I esteem the work a very valuable one for 
primary aud kindergarten teachers and for all interested in the psy- 
chology of childhood." 

Col Francis W. Parker, Principal Cook County Normal and 
Training School, Chicago : " I am glad to see that you have published 
Perez's wonderful work upon childhood. T shall do all I can to ge* 
everybody to read it. It is a grand woris." 



SEND ALL ORDEBS TO 



E. L. KELLOGG & CO., 25 CLINTON PLACE, JV. T) 



Loves Industrial Education. 

Industrial Education ; a guide to Manual Training. By 
Samuel G. Love, principal of the Jamestown, (N. Y.) 
public schools. Cloth, 12mo, 330 pp. with 40 full-page 
plates containing nearly 400 figures. Price, $1.50 ; to 
Teachers, $1.20 ; by mail, 12 cents extra. 
1. Industrial Education not understood. Probably the only 
m an who has wrought out the problem in a practical way is 

Samuel G. Love, the superin- 



=INDU5TRIAL- 
/EDUCATION; 




tLOVE* 



tendent of the Jamestown (N. 
Y.) schools. Mr. Love has now 
about 2,400 children in the 
primary, advanced, and high 
schools under his charge ; he 
is assisted by fifty teachers, so 
that an admirable opportunity 
was offered. In 1874 (about 
fourteen years ago) Mr. Love 
began his experiment ; gradu- 
ally he introduced one occu- 
pation, and then another, until 
at last nearly all the pupils are 
following some form of educat- 
ing work. 

2. Why it is demanded. The 
reasons for introducing it are 
clearly stated by Mr. Love. It 
was done because the educa- 
tion of the books left the pu- 
pils unfitted to meet the prac- 
tical problems the world asks them to solve. The world does 
not have a field ready for the student in book-lore. The state* 
ments of Mr. Love should be carefully read. / 

3. It is an educational book. Any one can give some' 
formal work to girls and boys. What has been needed has 
been some one who could find out what is suited to the little 
child who is in the " First Header," to the one who is in the 
"Second Reader," and so on. It must be remembered the 
effort is not to make carpenters, and type-setters, and dress- 
makers of boys and girls, but to educate them by these- nf/^noa^ 
tions better than without the>n. 



SENt> ALL ORDEK8 TO 

E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHIC AM. 



Knvut 'Trpncurp? the price has just been 

*~_^_ O * &Wo wl ^ • GREATLY REDUCED. 

Compiled by Amos M. Kellogg, editor of the School Jour- 
nal. Elegant green and gold paper cover, 64 pp. Price, 
15 cents each ; to teachers, 12 cents ; by mail, 2 cents 
extra. 10th thousand. Special terms to schools for 25 
copies and over. 
This is a 
most valua- 
ble collec- 
tion of mu- 
sic for all 
schools and 
institutes. 

1. Most of 
the pieces 
have been se- 
lected by the 
teachers as 
favorites in 
the schools. 
They are the 
ones the pu- 
pils love to 
sing. 

2. All the pieces " have a ring to them ;" they are easily 
learned, and will not be forgotten. 

3. The themes and words are appropriate for young people. 
In these respects the work will be found to possess unusual 
merit. Nature, the Flowers, the Seasons, the Home, our 
Duties, our Creator, are entuned with beautiful music. 

4. Great ideas may find an entrance into the mind through 
music. Aspirations for the gocd, the beautiful, and the true 
are presented here in a musical form. 

5. Many of the wordf. have been written especially for the 
book. One piece, " The- Voice Within Us," p. 57, is worth the 
price of the book. 

6. The titles here given show the teacher what we mean : 
Ask the Children, Beauty Everywhere, Be in Time, Cheerfulness, 

Christmas Bells, Days of Summer Glory, The Dearest Spot, Evening 
6oug, Gentle Words, Going to School, Hold up the Riebt Hand, I Love 
the Merry, Merry Sunshine, Kind Deeds, Over in the Meadows, Our 
Happy School, Scatter the Germ* of the Beautiful, Time to Walk, THe 
Joliy Workers, The Teacher's Life* Tribute to Whittier, etc., etc 




LB '07 



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KELLOGG'S SERIES 

OF 

SPECIAL DAY BOOKS 

THIS exceedingly attractive and popular series contains the following 
books. The material in all is new, carefully selected and is adapteo 
l) all grades. A very valuable feature is the suggestions for the mos' effec- 
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help to the teacher. 

How to Celebrate Washington's Birthday in the 

SCHOOLROOM. Containing- Patriotic Exercises, Declamations, Recita- 
tions, Drills, Quotations, etc., fdr the Primary, Grammar, and High School. 
Price, 25c., postpaid. 

How to Celebrate Arbor Day in the School-Room. 

Giving (he Origin of * rbor Day, Hints on the Planting oi Trees, Special 
Exercises, Rose Drill, Recitations, Songs, and 50 Quotations. Price, '/5c, 
postpaid. 

How to Celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas 

IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM. Consisting of Recitations, Songs, Drills, Ex- 
ercises and Complete Programs for celebrating Autumn Days, Thanksgiv- 
ing, and C hristmas. Price. 25c, postpaid. 

New Year and Midwinter Exercises. 

Consisting of Recitations, Quotations, Authors' Birthdays, and Special Pro- 
grams for Celebrating New Year and Midwinter Days in the School-Room. 
Price, 35c., postpaid. 

Spring and Summer School Celebrations. 

Containing exercises and a large amount of material for May Day, Decoration 
Day, Easter. Commencement, Spring and Summer Celebrations. Price, 
25c, postpaid. " 

Fancy Drills and Marches, Motion Songs, and 

"IECES- For Arbor Day, Christmas, M 
triotic Occasions. Fully illustrated. Pi 

Authors' Birthdays. No. i. 

Containing programs for the celebration of Birthdays of Longfellow, Holmes, 
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25c, postpaid. 

Authors' Birthdays. No. 2. 

25 Programs for Lowell, Tennyson, Scott, Milton, Irving, Emerson, Whittier. 
Price, 25c, postpaid. 

Our Catalogue describes the best books for school entertainments. 
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ACTION PIECES- For Arbor Day, Christmas, Memorial Day, Closing 
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The Leading 
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Parker's Pedagogics, 

arker No more important work on education 
t represents the labor and thought of a life-time 
theory of concentration to be found. Price, $ 
2 cents. 

Parker's Talks on. Teaching 

d more interest and helped more teachers than any other American 
. Every page and every sentence contains an important truth for th« 
edition from new plates, with side-headings. Price reduced to $ 
, 80 cents; postage, 10 cents. 

Payne's Lectures on Education 



By Col. F W. Parker No more important work on education has'Yver been issued 
in this country It represents the labor and thought of a life-time It contains the best 
statement of the theory of concentration to be found. Price, $1.50; to teachers, 
$1.20; postage, 12 cents. 



contains perhaps, the clearest statement of the great principles, of education to be 
found in the English language. This is the best edition. Has side-headings, an 
analysis of each chapter, index, and life of author. Price, cloth, 90 cents postpaid ; 
paper, 50 cents. 

Page's Theory and Practice of Teaching. 

One of the best of all books for teachers. It should be read over and over again by 
every teacher. Our handsome Reading Circle Edition has large clear type, paragraph 
headings, questions on each chapter, a portrait and sketch of the author Price, cloth,. 
70 cents postpaid ; paper, 50 cents. 

Fitch's Lectures on Teaching. 

One of the most valuable books on the principles and methods of teaching. Every 
chapter is simple and definite. The problems of the school-room are discussed in the 
most helpful way. Handsomely bound in cloth, 400 pages. Price, $1.25 ; to teachers , 
$1.00 postpaid. 

Quick's Educational Reformers. 

The most interesting and helpful book on the History of Education. Everybody 
knows this book, which does not need our praise. Price, cloth, 9O cents postpaid ; 
paper, 50 cents. 

:ncer's Education. 



Spei 



The most remarkable book of the greatest philosopher of modern times, and th< 
most stirring book on education ever written. Our new edition is from clear type, witr 
elegant, durable cloth binding. Price, $1 00 ; to teachers, 80 cts.; postage, 10 cts 



The seven books forming a most valuable teachers' library . . <f»/T 
Sent, in cloth bindings postpaid, on receipt of ijpO.OC 

E. L. KELLOGG & CO., 61 E. 9th St, N.Y 



